This archive post may reference an old giveaway since closed.
Smarties Rocky Road that I made for the pre-school disco. These were made in a blind panic after one of my baking disasters. If you bung them in the freezer to set, you can do them in around an hour.
The recipe for Smarties Rocky Road is below with a printable sheet, but for your amusement, here is what else I did this week.
Round one, provide 100 cupcakes for the church bazaar; round two repeat this for the pre-school disco.
The mission being to make them even better than the pumpkin and cinnamon cupcakes last year.
These Christmas vanilla cupcakes were the ones done for this year’s church baking sale. They came out really well using packs of ready-made Christmas cupcake decorations.
So for the church sale, we were on fire: with the so-called assistance of my little helper, I churned out 96 cupcakes (48 vanilla, 48 chocolate) by lunchtime. I’d also spent two hours in Sainsbury’s before decorating them in around 90 minutes, in time for delivering to church.
That day, I had some dulce de leche buttercream left over from Daim Bar Cupcakes and so used this with vanilla buttercream for the vanilla cupcakes. Then I did straight chocolate buttercream for the chocolate bases. The toppings were Dr Oetker Christmas novelty shapes (shown above), Dr Oetker jazzies (below left) and Sainsbury’s chocolate coated crispies (below right). All very easy and fairly professional looking.
Then A Baking Disaster Strikes
Fast-forward to the pre-school disco one week later, Ted was still off preschool with chicken pox even though he’s symptom-free now and barely showed signs of having it. I’m frazzled.
Nevertheless, I’m feeling blasé about making a ton of cupcakes. We have this mass-cupcake-production thing pretty much sewn up after last week’s triumph. I don’t even start baking until 4 hours before the party.
And then THIS happens:
I only have plain flour and think “it’s ok I’ll add baking powder so it’s same as self raising”. Not done this before and I should have played it safe and popped to Spar for baking powder.
My cupcakes exploded and had big holes inside. They taste ok but look messy and even if I disguised their shape with icing, they crumble badly when peeling the wrappers off. Not a great impression to give as “the lady who makes cakes.”
Frantically, with less than one hour to go, I opt for a replacement.
What do you get for being a smartie pants trying to make your cupcakes at the last minute?
Smarties Rocky Road. It’s one step up from Cornflake Crispies – but the bottom line was, I knew the children at the disco would enjoy them. Which is what counts. Crisis averted!
Smarties Rocky Road - Big Batch For Kids Party
Equipment
- 2 8" square tins lined with baking parchment paper
Ingredients
- 400 g white chocolate
- 400 g milk chocolate
- 300 g Coco Pops or Nesquik Puffed Chocolate Pops Cereal, other puffed chocolate cereal
- 12 glacé cherries cut in half
- 50 g raisins a rough handful
- 75 g mini marshmallows
- 2 tubes Smarties or M&Ms - 8 funsize boxes of mini Smarties
Instructions
Do Not Panic
- Break the white chocolate into squares then blitz in the microwave, give it around one minute then 20 seconds at a time stirring in between - so it doesn't get hot spots and burn.
- Decant the cereal, cherries, raisins and mini marshmallows into a large mixing bowl.
- Tip melted chocolate onto the dry ingredients and combine.
- Press the mixture down into the baking tins.
- Melt the milk chocolate in the microwave too. Pour over the white chocolate/crispy pop mixture, spread gently to the edges.
- Scatter over the Smarties.
- Allow to cool then freeze for 20 minutes (or leave in fridge for 2 hours if you are blessed with time).
- Once set, cut into 25 squares per tin and throw haphazardly into Ikea storage tubs lined with coloured paper napkins. Run to party.
Other flavours of Rocky Road
Rocky road is so easy to make, and I have several versions:
- White Aero Rocky Road
- White Chocolate Rocky Road with Ginger Biscuits
- But best of all, my stunning Crunchie Rocky Road
I always had barbie cakes as a child! My mum has made dog cakes, cat cakes, castle cakes you name ’em in the past twenty years! I also liked you on facebook.
Love making cakes this mould looks fab
We had a godfather party once with a horses head cake.