Baking with the children – Rocky Road

Baking is one of the children’s favourite activities, and something which we do quite often as a family. I won’t lie, it can get a little bit stressful when all four of the children are wanting to “help” and the aftermath will have you reaching for the mop bucket, but it’s always lovely to see their little faces tucking into something which they have created themselves.

Over the years I have found several ways to make baking less stressful.

1. Make sure that your kitchen worktops are clear before you start baking. There’s nothing worse than trying to work around clutter.

2. Pre weigh the ingredients into separate bowls that can simply be tipped in by the children. I find that this saves a lot of time, mess and arguing over who gets to do what!

3. Wear aprons – this is something I learned the hard way! Wipe clean aprons are a must and save a lot of washing afterwards.

Our favourite recipe to make together is Rocky Road. Partly because it requires minimum baking and partly because, with me not being the best cook, there is little chance of it going wrong!

Ingredients

Ingredients
200g Dark Chocolate (70% cocoa solids works best)
2-3 tbsp Golden Syrup
135g Butter or Margarine
100g Mini Marshmallows
200g Digestive biscuits
Icing sugar to dust
Optional Ingredients
Organic raisins, dried cranberries or any dried fruit
Nuts
Anything else you think would be tasty

Method

• Line a small to medium sized square baking tray with baking paper.
• Place biscuits into a freezer bag and bash with a rolling pin or just the side of your fist until they’re broken into a mixture of everything between dust and 50p size lumps. Put this to one side.
• In a large sauce pan, enameled cast iron is best for even heat distribution, melt the butter, chocolate and golden syrup over a gentle heat stiring it constantly until there are no or almost no more lumps of chocolate visible, then remove from the heat.
• Take Biscuits, marshmallows and any additional delicious ingredients and pour into the pan of the chocolate mixture. Stir all this into the mixture until everything is completely covered.
• Tip the mixture into the lined baking tray, making sure you get it all, and spread the mixture out to the corners.
• Refrigerate this for at least 2 hours then dust with icing sugar and cut into squares.

*** This is a collaborative post ***