A few weeks ago I started collecting the  30 Best Loved Recipes series which is currently being published by Hachette.  This series features a small square book with a new one issued each week just like a magazine.  Each book has a well known brand familiar in the UK and contains recipes or serving suggestions using this particular product.

The publisher’s notes on the back say: ” Your favourite multi coloured chocolate snacks are here to liven up your elevenses and dive into your desserts!  Let your creativity go wild with these simple and delicious Smarties recipes. Have fun making Rainbow Cake, Smarties Toffee Apples, multicoloured toadstools, chocolate Smarties robots, Smarties Sundaes and much more besides.. a real treat for kids and grown ups alike!”

As I’ve always loved Smarties ever since I was a little girl back in the 70’s(!) I was keen to get my hands on this issue. I didn’t know what to expect though as each issue comes wrapped up and backed onto a large piece of cardboard.  You can’t see what is inside until you have bought the magazine for obvious reasons!  My mind was full of Smartie cookies, Smartie cupcakes and lots of other tempting treats in which you could use Smarties in recipes.  So, I got home with the rest of my shopping from my local Morrisons and couldn’t wait to open the package.

When I managed to open the book I was a bit disappointed.  The book was a bit of an anti-climax.  Out of the 30 recipes, only about three or four of them made me want to get my apron on.  The Creepy Smarties Cupcakes (where the Smarties were eyes on a Mummy themed Hallowe’en cupcake) looked good fun, the Rocky Road looked tempting, and so did the Smarties cupcakes.  There were other ones that looked ok but nothing special  Perhaps it’s just what floats my boat, I couldn’t see me baking them, somehow. Still, the book was only £2.99 so I didn’t think that I had broken the bank though.

I decided last week, though to have a go at the Smartie’s Rocky Road.  Everyone in our family loves Rocky Road and I just fancied making something chocolatey for the Mother’s Day weekend. Rocky Road always goes down well whenever I do a Sam’s Smart Cookies stall and is always one of my most popular cakes.  I’m not surprised, I find Rocky Road very moreish.

I looked in my baking cupboard and once again had a nasty shock when I saw my Digestive biscuit box was as empty as Mother Hubbard’s cupboard!  The kids and my hubby sneak the odd one or two when I’m not around thinking it doesn’t matter, I won’t miss one!  I was furious as the Rocky Road recipe needed 200g digestive biscuits, that’s half a large packet! Arrrgggghhh!!  What could I use instead?  In the end I used more marshmallows and Smarties to make up for the lack of digestives but it couldn’t be helped.

The Rocky Road was made by melting plain chocolate, butter and golden syrup together.  Once this was melted I added the mini marshmallows (a large bag of multicoloured ones from Lakeland) and two 100g boxes of Smarties into the mixture. These were stirred in and then added to a square loose bottomed cake tin lined with cling film.  Once this was in the tin, the tin went into the fridge to set for a couple of hours.  The Rocky Road was then turned out onto a board and cut into 16 squares.

I personally found this Rocky Road recipe a bit more sickly than my own version but it did go down very well with everyone.  I am looking forward to trying out the cupcake recipes in the 30 Best Loved Recipes book in the future

Happy Baking!

Love Sam xx