Pistachio Rocky Road

I’m currently in Brussels, one of the chocolate capitals of the world. Seriously, even the cheap supermarket chocolate is uh-mazing. No joke.

Which means that if I’m not consuming whole bars of milk and white chocolate (my favourites), I’m baking chocolate-based treats.

We love having a sweet treat after dinner every night. I know it’s not good for us, but I’ve always had a sweet tooth and even growing up I would have snuck a couple of cookies or some ice cream after dinner. The meal just doesn’t seem “complete” without a little something extra to indulge in.

We will get comfy on the sofa and watch some of our favourite shows online while enjoying our sweet snacks, like this pistachio rocky road. Our favourites are Dexter, The Newsroom, Dragons’ Den and The Amazing Race (for obvious reasons). We tend to miss whole seasons or several episodes at a time, meaning that we will have marathons of the shows back-to-back.

This has ruined me because I’m so impatient that I love finding out what happens next and means that I now hate watching a show weekly.

Especially with Dexter – is anyone else watching this final season? So much is going on that it’s pretty crazy, but I can’t wait to find out the inevitable twist at the end!

Anyhoo, I digress. 

I have always enjoyed good, homemade rocky road, but it isn’t something that I make often. After making the coconut granola with some pistachios, I decided that I was going to incorporate some into this rocky road, thus combining the delicious Belgian chocolate with the nuts.

Pistachio rocky road is so easy to make. I find it best to make it in the morning to enjoy that evening or to leave it to chill overnight, that way it doesn’t melt all over your fingers (although who doesn’t love licking melted chocolate off their fingers?) and is easy to cut into squares.

Pistachio Rocky Road

Recipe by Julia

Servings

9

servings

Prep time

15

minutes

Chilling Time

2

hours

Ingredients

• 9 tbsp butter

• 300g (10oz) milk chocolate, broken or cut into pieces

• 1/4 cup maple syrup

• 100g (4oz) plain cookies or biscuits (such as Graham Crackers, digestives or rich tea)

• 1/4 cup pistachio nuts

• 1/4 mini marshmallows (big marshmallows can be substituted if cut into small pieces)

Directions

• Put the butter, chocolate pieces and syrup into a saucepan on a medium heat and melt, continuously stirring until the mixture is smooth.
• Scoop 1/2 cup of this melted mixture out of the pan and set aside. Turn off the heat.
• Put the biscuits/cookies into a freezer bag or wrap them in a clean dish cloth, and hit them with a rolling pin until they are broken into small and medium-sized pieces.
• Fold the biscuit/cookie pieces into the melted chocolate and then add the pistachios and marshmallows and stir until everything is covered in chocolate.
• Line a 9×9 square tin with baking paper and pour the chocolate mixture into it, flattening it with a spatula so that the top is somewhat even.
• Pour the extra 1/2 cup of melted chocolate over the top and smooth to cover. Add an extra sprinkling of pistachios and marshmallows onto the top if desired.
• Refrigerate for at least two hours, then cut into squares and serve.