Rocky Road Chocolate Bar

This scrumptious offering was a lovely birthday gift from my friend Emma. It came via the Country Living Fair in Glasgow from Chocolati, an Ayr based company. It had cherries (top marks), marshmallows and lovely chocolate so it tasted great - apart from the coconut. So sorry, marks off for the coconut. (Don't like coconut, has no place in Rocky Road in my opinion). Have I said enough about coconut do you think? 

Find Chocolati's amazing range of products at http://www.chocolati.co.uk/

More Versions of Nigella's Recipe

These little bite size pieces of Nigella's recipe were served up at Woolly Tuesday, the knitting club held at Newton Stewart Library. Lorraine Baxter makes them but tweaks the recipe depending on what she's got in the store cupboard so sometimes she will include nuts and CHERRIES. She's got my vote then. Rule one of Rocky Road is always include cherries. 

Kirstie's Christmas Spectacular

Invited myself round to Kirstie McKie's house to sample her Rocky Road (and to see her new Cocker Spaniel puppy Hooper) over the Festive season. I tried very hard to get a photograph of Hooper with the Rocky Road but he was incapable of keeping still so they were all badly blurred. The Rocky Road, made to Nigella's fabby recipe, was great (though I did miss a bit of fruit - sorry Kirstie). Anyway, Kirstie makes cakes (on top of her own demanding job) for her brother's eaterie in Glasgow. Cafe Pop can be found on the Great Western Road near the junction with Byres Road. It's worth a visit and not just for Kirstie's cakes. I also sampled a wonderful ginger cake while watching the dog whizz round the house. 

Dobbies Garden Centre, Ayr

Stopped at Dobbies Garden Centre on the way to the Country Living Christmas Fair recently and felt I had to sample their Rocky Road. The cafe was very busy as they had a two for one deal on the cooked breakfasts. Ignoring the lure of a bacon roll we looked at the cakes. There is the most amazing cake selection, we had to stop ourselves pressing our noses up against the glass like excited children. For research purposes I had to go for the Rocky Road but, decisions, decisions, there were two a white chocolate and milk chocolate. We went for the white chocolate and I have a great picture but at the moment it's refusing to transfer onto the blog! Argh technology! 
We expected the white chocolate Rocky Road to be eye wateringly sweet but surprisingly it wasn't. It was good but like many Rocky Roads there was the promise of cherries but it turned out just to be a bit of a tease. The content was ok but not outstanding and I was left wishing that I'd had something else - maybe the milk chocolate one! 
(For meringue fans, the one at Dobbies is fantastic, rather overwhelming but amazing. Had it before, I wish to add, didn't have it on top of the Rocky Road!) 

Nona Lous, The Old School, Dumfries

No Rocky Road to review I'm afraid but I was assured that it is frequently available amongst their cakes and traybakes. I'm hoping to go back and sample it soon. I need to go back to Dumfries soon to do some research, so that's a good excuse. 
My daughter and I did sample the soup, which was great, and the salad, which was excellent. We also tried the cakes which were also of an equally high standard. The two young women who have opened this cafe are doing an excellent job. The decoration is wonderful and a treat for anyone interested in that Cath Kidston cottage style. They use old china crockery and are keen to receive donations if anyone is thinking of throwing any out - in good condition only I would guess, not anything chipped. They told me that the bake things fresh every day. Their only difficulty that I can see is that the building, The Old School, is not easy to find. I think people in and around Dumfries probably know where to find this new centre that houses an art room, drama studio and hairdressers along with the tea room. But casual visitors are not going to chance upon it. I lived in Dumfries for seven years so have some understanding of the little warren of roads where The Old School can be found, and the one way system that sweeps you passed it. It is well worth working out how to get there though if you're going to Dumfries. There's a treat in store. 

The Alexandra Coffee Shop, George Street, Stranraer

This is a very small cafe almost opposite the Museum in Stranraer (which is well worth a visit). The cafe was warm, welcoming and delightfully bright and sunny when we visited. The Rocky Road looked good, marshmallows, cherries, chocolate with white chocolate drizzled across the top and a fluttering of almonds. And it didn't taste bad either. But, and sorry but there is a but, I'm just not a fan of this style of Rocky Road even though it is a pretty common recipe. It's the kind of Rocky Road that has a crumbly bottom (not good for anyone!) made from crushed biscuits with, I suspect, some cornflakes or something in there. This gives it a good crunch but when it's combined with a hard chocolate topping it makes for an eating disaster. This combination of really solid top and crumbly bottom means that most of the base just disintegrates when you bite it and scatters across the table. You lose a good 10 per cent of the traybake in crumbs and it also makes you look like a really messy eater. There's also something about this hard chocolate top, is it a mixture of real and fake chocolate? It does something weird to marshmallows, it takes away that delightful softness and replaces it with something chewy. I have to say the coffee was good and the rest of the extensive cake and traybake selection looked great. The Rocky Road was fine, but it will not make my top ten for 2012. 

Madigan's Food Emporium

There was still a whiff of fresh paint at Madigan's Food Emporium - it's that new. This cafe and delicatessen has taken over from the Burgh Coffeehouse in Castle Street, Dundee. It was so fresh and new that the food for the delicatessen section hadn't arrived! We were not able to sample any Rocky Road sadly but I was assured that they do often have it on offer, so there's an excuse to go back. We did have some really nice food, ciabatta's with lovely fillings and my son had the special of the day which was crab - his favourite. We felt it was important to try the cake selection to see what kind of standard they're achieving and we were impressed. I had a Mars Bar chocolate bun which was very chocolatey, my daughter had an excellent Millionaire's Shortbread and my son said the Toffee Cake was very good. One of the main attractions is the fact that their tea and coffee come from the very wonderful Braithwaites which is further up Castle Street. If you're ever in Dundee you must call in.  This unassuming traditional shop looks like it belongs to another century but it contains a treasure store of fabulous teas and coffees.