The Chocolate Festival

The Chocolate Festival took place this weekend (10-12th December) at the Southbank and at first I thought I couldn't make it as I was working all weekend. But when I told my boss all about it he let me leave work early so that I had time to catch the last 30 minutes before all the cocoa delights were packed away!

I bought a few treats from the following stalls:

Ooh La La Chocolaterie - a box of twelve truffles including lemon curd and elderflower, vanilla and black forest.

Cocoapod - some cute Christmas themed chocolate lollipops with edible transfer patterns.

Jaz and Julz - a pack of chocolate orange flavoured organic drinking chocolate.

There was also a stall for chocolate art. White Fox supplied a fashionable selection of jewellery, shoes, socks and mittens.

There was also an impressive model of a steam engine on a choccy railway track!

The Chocolate Festival takes place in London, Oxford, Brighton and Kingston and the next one is in April, so make sure you check it out when it's back in town. As well as products to buy there are freshly made crepes and baked goods all involving chocolate so it's difficult to walk away empty handed.

Rocky Road - Cranberry & Macadamia

Treat alert! 

I've been dying to make some rocky road for days now, and seeing as I had a spare half hour, and a lot of dark chocolate winking at me, there was no excuse. When it comes to biscuit based chocolate treats I tend to want a bit more colour and subtle flavour as the bitter dark chocolate can hog the limelight somewhat. I've tried it with dried cranberries and macadamia nuts and it really balances out and adds that extra hint of flavour to compliment the chocolate.

Preparation time: 15-20 mins

Cooking time: 10 mins

125g soft unsalted butter

300g dark chocolate (Green & Blacks is great)

200g light digestives

100g marshmallows (cut into quarters or use mini marshmallows)

40g macadamia nuts

40g dried cranberries

Place the digestives in a plastic sandwich bag/cling film, tie the end and bash it with a rolling pin to get various sized chunks - largest needs to be roughly 2cm.

Chop your macadamia nuts in half/quarters - leave a couple for later! 

Melt the butter and dark chocolate in a pan over a low heat.

If you need to cut up your marshmallows do it now, and into quarters.

Pour 3/4 of the melted butter and chocolate into a mixing bowl, and add your crushed digestives, nuts, marshmallows and cranberries (leave a few cranberries for later) and fold altogether.

Line a 24cm/9in square tray (or any shallow tray you may have) with greaseproof paper.

Place the mixture into the tray and pat down so it's packed in tightly.

With the remaining 1/4 of chocolate in the pan, lightly reheat it so it's back to a melted state, then pour over the top of the mixture in the tray.

With the leftover macadamia nuts, place them into a sandwich bag/cling film, tie up and bash with a rolling pin until they're ground to tiny pieces. Sprinkle over the top of the mixture in the tray.

Pop a couple of cranberries over the top for some colour too.

Place in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours.

When ready cut into fingers.

You should have about 20-24 pieces.

If you have an alergy to nuts the recipe will obviously still taste lovely without them (the biscuit gives all the crunch factor you need).