Looking at the Good Food Calendar hanging in my kitchen I could not help but take  notice of the very rich and delectable looking Rocky Road Chocolate Cake featured for the month of April… it was like as if the photograph was saying…“bake me”, “bake me”… so I did exactly that!  It has been quite some time since I made anything rocky road and with my son back for the holidays, home baked goodies were back on the menu.

I quite liked the idea of a chocolate cake topped with a layer of rocky road which consisted of  melted chocolate, marshmallows, walnuts, raisins and crunchy Maltesers… definitely a rustic and homely looking bake!

Place some Rocky Road Chocolate Cakes into little gift boxes and give to family and friends for a special Easter treat.

Rocky Road Chocolate Cakes

( recipe and method from the 2012 Good Food Calendar)

Ingredients:

• 175g/6oz butter, plus extra for greasing
• 200g/8oz light soft brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 140g/5oz self-raising flour
• 50g/2oz cocoa powder
• For the Rock Road
• 100g/4oz butter
• 300g/11oz dark chocolate, roughly chopped
• 3 tablespoons golden syrup
• 12 marshmallows, halved with scissors
• 85g/3oz Maltesers
• 85g/ raisins
• 50g/2oz walnut halves

Note: Looking at the recipe I decided to add in 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract when mixing the ingredients for the chocolate cake base.

Rubbing a little vegetable oil on the scissors, helps prevent the marshmallows from sticking.

I omitted the raisins from the rocky road layer.

Chilling the finished cake makes cutting into squares much easier.

You will need a 20cm square cake tin greased and lined (side and base) with baking parchment.

How to make: Pre-heat the oven to 180C/350F/160C fan/Gas 4.

Gently melt the butter in a large pan, cool for 5 minutes, then stir in the eggs, flour and cocoa and beat well. Spoon into tin, level the surface and bake for 35 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.

To make the rocky road: Gently melt the butter, chocolate and syrup together. Cool for 15 minutes, then stir in the marshmallows, Maltesers, raisins and walnuts. Make sure the chocolate is cool because if it isn’t the marshmallows will melt. Spoon on top of cake in tin and lightly spread to cover it completely. Leave to set in a cool place. Remove from tin, carefully strip off the lining paper and cut into squares.

Easy: Colour some white eggs with food coloring. Mix a few drops of food colouring with some water in a bowl. Place eggs into the coloured water and leave until eggs are desired colour