Late night chocolate experiments

It often gets to that point in the night, not long after dinner, that I get an unstoppable craving for something sweet and deliciously unhealthy. Unstoppable, that is, without satisfying it.

Tonight I was in the mood for a thick, Spanish/Italian/Belgian style hot chocolate. Instant powder and boiling water did not fit the bill, so I threw together what cocoa products were around and success! A rich, thick, indulgent night time drink good enough to coat a hot sugary churro. 

I thought I'd write the combination down so that others may enjoy too, or at least I can refer back to this post to recreate:

• 2 squares bourneville
• 2 squares lindt caramel
• 2 ts green & black's chocolate powder
• 2 ts tesco's finest salted caramel chocolate flakes
• 1/4 t ground cinnamon
• mug of skimmed milk

Put all of the above ingredients into a small saucepan on low, whisk until smooth and chocolate is dissolved into milk. Heat to just below boiling, pour into mug and wait for 15 mins for the flavours to infuse. (This is the hard part). Mine developed a skin, which in my opinion is the sign of a good hot chocolate. Enjoy alone or with a traditional European questionably-shaped hot donut. Or with a questionably shaped hot European. Whatever's available. 

Note: this is not a recipe to be followed religiously - despite how tasty it is - just throw what chocolate you have into a saucepan with milk and whisk. But I will say: the darker the chocolate, the richer the taste. 

The perfect rocky road bars

Firstly, welcome to post number 1 of EllieFood! I tried to design a pretty header and customize everything but my technological expertise failed me. If anyone is good with this kind of stuff I'd really appreciate any help, but for now we have to make to with this simple design - if I faffed around for any longer trying to make it look all fancy I don't think there'd be a new post til I've finished uni.

Here's the pic I tried to use just to prove my efforts:

Anyway - the bars.

As probably one of the easiest sweet treats to make, rocky road bars are my fail-safe party showstopper. The basic recipe is to grab everything unhealthy, smash it all to bits, cover it with gooey melted chocolate and refrigerate.

However, if you're going to make something so easy that it doesn't even really count as baking, you might as well make it perfect.

I made this batch to serve at a 40th wedding anniversary, and I think it's my best one yet.

This time I used:

200g Galaxy

100g Bourneville

100g Dairy Milk whole nut

70g butter

2 Ts golden syrup

150g chopped marshmallows (I used scissors but small ones work too)

Pack of hobnobs

Almost a box of maltesers

100g chopped wonka's millionaire shortbread (had it in, use choc chips/other chopped choc or omit)

75g mixed dried fruit

Construction:

Melt chocolate, butter and syrup in a saucepan on low til runny and smooth. Separately, crush the biscuits - I do this by whacking the full packet on the sides of a large bowl til it bursts, then jabbing at the crumbs with a rolling pin - add all the other  dry ingredients, mix, cover with the cooled chocolate. Press into a greased and lined rectangular tin. I think this made about 24 large ones, which Mum then halved again because my portion sizes are greedy.If you want to make it look a bit more special you can dust with icing sugar, but I don't bother, I think there's already enough sugar in these mini heart attacks.

This recipe is just a combination of everything I had in, so be creative - add different nuts, fruit, cereal maybe? Granola would probably work. Most of all, ENJOY RESPONSIBLY.

Let me know if you have a recipe that rivals this one.