If you read my Victoria Sponge Cake post, you’ll know that I had a random baking day one day after work. This is part two from that day!
This is a bit of a mixed up post, as it’s me discovering a new favourite blogger as well as my opinion of two recipes. I decided to shove it all together since both recipes would have been short on their own, so apologises in advance for the long post!
When I bake, I always like to make things my family will like. I’ve felt a bit bad for my sister as she hasn’t been too keen on my recent baking, but she’s definitely a fan of both these recipes! The first recipe was a request from my mum, from a recipe she found on Pinterest.
It doesn’t involve lemon or any other sort of fruit that my mum usually likes. Instead, it’s for Rolo Rocky Road.
My holy grail rocky road is Nigella Lawson’s, but I’ve not made it for ages. I’ve only ever tried one other rocky road recipe since I like that one so much. Anyway, I was excited to try a new one, especially one with sweets added!
This recipe comes from Sweetest Menu and it is delicious! I left out the peanuts so that everyone would eat them, and replaced them with a couple of Digestive biscuits. The mixture was a little bit more liquidy than I expected, but it worked well!
What I like about this recipe is the mix of dark and milk chocolate. It’s just enough to get the taste of dark chocolate, but it’s not overpowering. This makes it ideal for those who don’t like dark chocolate. It’s also easy to do. The recipe said to melt the chocolate in the microwave but I couldn’t find a big enough bowl so I used a Bain Marie. While it was melting, I measured out the rest of the ingredients. This was easy and had virtually no mess since I could just zero the electric scales after each ingredient. If you’re looking for something simple and easy, this is definitely a recipe for you!
Here’s a photo! It’s hard to make rocky road look visually appealing, but trust me, it was delicious!
Now, back to Sweetest Menu. It’s run by a woman called Jess and her recipes are inspired by American cuisine. Since I’m nosey, I had a little look about her blog and I’ve fallen in love with so many of the recipes, especially the M&M Candy Cookie Pie! I can’t wait to try more recipes!
I also found a recipe for ‘Easy Salted Caramel Fudge Truffles‘. I’ve been on the lookout for a new truffle recipe, since the ones I tried at Christmas were a flop. Obviously I couldn’t wait six months, so I gave them a try.
The recipe was easy to follow, but it wouldn’t be a recipe made by Ellen without a disaster! I used a bowl that was too small to melt the sugar, condensed milk and butter together and it exploded in the microwave. 10/10 to me! Luckily, most the mixture was still useable, so I poured it into another bowl and continued.
I liked the method of melting them together in the microwave. Boiling sugar and condensed milk scares me which is why I’ve hid away from making fudge in the past, but this was a much simpler way.
I also decided to melt less chocolate to coat the truffles with, as I was worried a lot would be wasted. I used 200g which was still too much. I think even 100g would have been fine.
The coating itself was a bit fiddly, and my truffles weren’t perfectly round since the chocolate pooled around the bottom. Does that even make sense? I think next time I might try putting them on a wire rack so the chocolate drips off more. I’d also leave them to set for a bit longer. They were a bit soft and I think firmer truffles would be easier to coat. Anyway, it didn’t affect the taste of them, and they’re definitely a contender for Christmas! My sister suggested topping them with the little holly decorations that you can buy in the shops to make them look like Christmas puddings, which is definitely a great idea!
The recipe says it makes 18, but we got 26, of varying sizes. I say ‘we’ because my sister jumped in to help with the coating. I think it was really an excuse to lick the bowl!
I’ll spare you photos of mine. If you want to see what they look like, look at Jess’s blog. Her photos are a million times better than anything I could take!
So, that’s my rambling done for just now! Definitely go and look at Jess’s blog. I challenge you to look and not find something you want to make! Also, if anyone has any more recommendations of baking blogs I should follow please let me know! I love finding new blogs to follow!
These are a Hummingbird Bakery recipe (of course) and they are so easy to make. They’re not as dense as a typical chocolate cupcake. I used to make these all the time!
