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How to make rocky road
Rocky road needs no oven, no thermometer and no special skill, which makes it a good treat to make with children. Here is a family recipe from Jamie Oliver's website, a note on allergens, and where rocky road came from.
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Rocky road is a no bake treat: pieces of biscuit, marshmallow, nuts and dried fruit bound together with melted chocolate and left to set. It is especially popular in Britain and in Australia, where it is linked with Christmas.
What you need
This follows the rocky road recipe by Buddy Oliver, from his cookbook Let's Cook, published on Jamie Oliver's website. It makes 16 pieces:
- 100 g dark chocolate, 70%
- 100 g milk chocolate
- 125 g unsalted butter
- 75 g golden syrup
- 50 g marshmallows
- 150 g ginger nut or digestive biscuits
- 75 g unsalted nuts, such as pistachios or toasted hazelnuts
- 75 g chocolate covered honeycomb
- 75 g glacé cherries or dried fruit
- 50 g white chocolate
You will also need a 25 by 30 cm tray, lined with greaseproof paper.
Method
- Melt. Put the dark and milk chocolate, butter and golden syrup in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water, and stir until everything has melted: see how to melt chocolate
- Chop. Halve the marshmallows, break up the biscuits, chop the nuts, crush the honeycomb and halve the cherries or fruit.
- Mix. Stir everything into the melted chocolate until coated.
- Chill. Spread it in the lined tray and chill for at least 4 hours.
- Finish. Melt the white chocolate, drizzle it over the top, chill again until set, then cut into pieces.
Children can help with the chopping, breaking and stirring, with an adult handling the hot water and knives.
Make it your own
Rocky road is easy to change. The recipe here uses honeycomb, which you can make yourself: see how to make honeycomb toffee. In Australia, gummy sweets often go in.
A note on allergens
As written, this recipe contains several of the 14 main allergens: nuts, wheat from the biscuits, and milk from the chocolate and butter. Many marshmallows also contain gelatine, which is not suitable for vegetarians. If you are making it for someone with an allergy or a special diet, swap ingredients to suit and check every label: see which sweets contain nuts? and what sweets are gelatine free?
Where rocky road came from
The name began in America. The cookbook author Jean Anderson found the earliest rocky road recipe in Young America's Cookbook, published by the New York Herald Tribune in 1938, and a possible forerunner, a chocolate marshmallow fudge, in a 1923 cookbook. In America today, rocky road is an ice cream flavour, while in Britain and Australia the name is used for this chocolate treat.
Citable formats
For journalists, researchers, AI assistants and content creators. Pick the format you need:
Free to cite, quote, and reuse with attribution to sweeties.net.
Questions and answers
How long does rocky road take to set?
At least 4 hours in the fridge, in the family recipe on Jamie Oliver's website, before you drizzle it with white chocolate and chill it again to set completely.
What biscuits are best for rocky road?
The recipe here uses ginger nuts or digestives, broken into pieces. Other versions use different biscuits, or none at all.
Is rocky road safe for people with allergies?
Not as written here. This recipe contains nuts, wheat from the biscuits and milk from the chocolate and butter, and many marshmallows contain gelatine. Swap ingredients to suit, and check every label.
Sources
- Buddy's rocky road, from Let's Cook by Buddy Oliver, Jamie Oliver
- Rocky road (dessert), Wikipedia
Keep reading
- Sweet tips and how toHow to melt chocolateMelt chocolate gently, in short bursts or over a pan of hot water, and keep every drop of water away from it. Here is how, and how to rescue it if it seizes.
- Sweet tips and how toHow to melt marshmallowsMelt marshmallows slowly, in a pan over a low heat with a little butter, or in short bursts in the microwave. How to do both, and the classic crispy square.
- Sweet tips and how toHow to make honeycomb toffeeHoneycomb is golden syrup and sugar cooked to an amber caramel, then foamed up with bicarbonate of soda. A simple method, and why it can go flat or chewy.
- Questions people askWhich sweets contain nuts?Nougat, marzipan, brittle, chocolate peanuts and some Turkish delight contain nuts. Peanuts and tree nuts are separate allergens, and labels must show them.
- Diet, allergens and labelsA guide to gluten free sweetsGluten free means 20 ppm of gluten or less. Watch for wheat flour in liquorice and wafers and barley malt in malted centres; wheat glucose syrup is exempt.
- Questions people askWhat sweets are gelatine free?Boiled sweets, rock and sherbet rarely need gelatine, and some chewy sweets have dropped it, from Fruit Pastilles to Percy Pigs. How to check.