Rocky Road Crunch Bars Separating | Ask Nigella.com (2024)

FAQs

Why has my rocky road mixture split? ›

There are a few reasons why your chocolate may have split while making Easter rocky road. For one, you could have heated the chocolate too quickly. Or, you may have burnt the chocolate/overcooked it. Ensure you avoid getting water in the chocolate, as it can cause it to split.

It may help to let the whole sheet of Rocky Road stand out of the fridge in a cool place for about an hour and then cut it. You can store the cut bars in an airtight container in the fridge. It is also possible that the chocolate became a little too hot and siezed as you melted it.

FREEZE AHEAD: Make the Rocky Road as above and freeze for up to 1 month. Thaw overnight in a cool place.

Chocolate seizes when it comes into contact with even a small amount of liquid or moisture during the melting process. This is because the water causes the sugar in the chocolate to dissolve and then form a syrup, which binds the cocoa particles together, creating a grainy, thick, and clumpy texture.

If this happens, place your mixing bowl over a saucepan of hot tap water for a few minutes. This will help warm all the ingredients through. You can then try to beat the mixture again. Another fix for a curdled mix is to add a tablespoon of flour, stirring in until the batter emulsifies again.

Funnily enough, it's super simple. First boil some water. Second, very slowly, as in 1-2 tsp at a time add in the boiling water and whisk the chocolate vigorously until the mixture is smooth again. The hot water will essentially melt the clumps back to a liquid consistency.

Adding enough water (about 20% by weight) will un-seize the mixture although it will of course contain much more water. Similarly, seized chocolate can be recovered for some purposes simply by adding additional water.

If your rocky road is overly soft, it might be that you added too much butter or syrup or too little chocolate. To avoid mistakes with ratios, I always recommend measuring everything out before you start. If you have everything measured out in advance, you're less likely to make mistakes.

Rocky Road is best kept in the fridge but you can enjoy it at room temperature. Store it in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 weeks or at room temperature for 1-2 weeks. It can also be frozen, just let it come up to room temperature before eating.

Our original Rocky Road is still as popular as ever with sweet marshmallows, crunchy nuts and red wine jelly covered in delicious milk chocolate. Hide it somewhere if you don't want to share! Ingredients: Milk chocolate, marshmallows, red wine jelly, peanuts, almonds.

Can you freeze Nigella breakfast bars? ›

Store in an airtight container in a cool place or in fridge for up to 1 week. Wrap bars individually in plastic wrap or foil and put in a resealable bag, or stack bars in an airtight container with baking parchment in between the layers. Freeze for up to 2 months.

I gifted my rocky road by cutting it up into squares and popping it into a large repurposed glass jar and tying a little bow with brown string I had saved from gift wrapping!

According to one source, the flavor was created in March 1929 by William Dreyer in Oakland, California when he cut up walnuts and marshmallows with his wife's sewing scissors and added them to his chocolate ice cream in a manner that reflected how his partner Joseph Edy's chocolate candy creation incorporated walnuts ...

Save it to make hot chocolate, for baking, for grating as a garnish, or mix it with nut butter to create a delicious chocolate spread.

One method you can use is mixing teaspoons of boiling water into your seized chocolate over a double boiler. Add the teaspoons one at a time, mixing thoroughly each time, until your chocolate is liquid again.

Overheated chocolate will lose the silky sheen of melted chocolate and become thick and muddy since it's very sensitive to high temperatures. Different chocolates require different maximum temperatures to melt properly.

Reversing the reaction means adding just enough water (or other liquid) to dissolve most of the sugar and cocoa particles in the seized chocolate clumps. It's easy to do: Simply add boiling water to seized chocolate, 1 teaspoon at a time, and stir vigorously after each addition until the chocolate is smooth.