Rocky Road Halloween Graveyard Cake

If you haven't got much time for Halloween baking but want to make something as a treat, then look no further than this recipe. It would make a great centrepiece for a children's party - and goes down pretty well with adults too!

The recipe comes from the Konditor & Cook recipe book 'Deservedly Legendary Baking'. It's basically a rocky road, arranged to look like a grave site, with some bones and skeleton hands coming out of the grave!

 

You can find the recipe online here. I left out the glace cherries as I don't like them, and used large marshmallows cut in half rather than mini marshmallows. I didn't bother making the grass around the edge of the grave either.

The recipe states to use white marzipan to make the bones and gravestone but I don't even know where to get white marzipan and didn't have time to try making it myself. Instead I used white fondant.

 

It was very easy to make the bones - I just rolled some sausage shapes and used my thumb to press in the ends. I used black food colouring and a cocktail stick to write R.I.P. on the gravestone.

 

I hadn't really thought about the recipe in advance as I'd had an incredibly busy week at work but did manage to make the rocky road on Friday night so it could set overnight in the fridge. When I came to arrange and decorate it on Saturday I realised I should have made the tombstone from rice krispies. You can make a giant rice krispie cake by mixing the cereal with melted butter and melted marshmallows, and pressing it down tightly into a pan. Once it has set you can carve it into different shapes and cover it with fondant; this would be a great way of making an edible tombstone to go at the top of the grave. Of course the fondant I used is edible but I'm not sure I want to eat a giant block of icing!

 

I'm sharing this with the Food Calendar challenge, hosted by Charlotte's Lively Kitchen.

I'm also sending it to this month's Food 'n' Flix; Deb at Kahakai Kitchen has chosen Beetlejuice - the story of a couple who (spoiler alert!) wake up after an accident and find they didn't survive.

 

 

Halloween Candy Corn Rocky Road

Candy Corn is popular in the US at Halloween, but most of the British people I asked had never heard of it. I think I've only come across it because I've been to the States in September a couple of times and the shops are full of candy corn in the run up to Halloween. Candy Corn looks like mini ears of corn and is orange and yellow coloured, made from corn syrup.

My boyfriend's mum went to America in September and brought me back a huge haul of candy and chocolates, including these candy corn M&Ms and a giant packet of candy corn marshmallows. I wanted to use them in baking and one good way to use marshmallows that sprang to mind is rocky road. Normally rocky road uses broken biscuits but I decided the hard candy casing of the M&Ms would give a similar crunch. I used milk chocolate for this as that was all I had, but it was very sweet so I would recommend using plain chocolate instead.

I based my recipe on Nigella's Rocky Road.

You need:
125g butter, softened
300g plain chocolate
3 tbsp. golden syrup
200g candy corn M&Ms, or similar, or broken up biscuits
100g marshmallows

Melt the butter and chocolate in a small pan then stir in the golden syrup and heat gently. Remove about half a cup of the mixture and set aside.

Stir in the M&Ms or biscuits and the marshmallows - chopped with scissors if large.

Line a 9 inch square tin with baking paper and pour in the chocolate mixture. Pour the reserved chocolate mixture over the top and spread roughly.

Chill in the fridge until set which will take at least two hours. When set, slice into squares.

My boyfriend was a very big fan of this but as mentioned I used milk chocolate and found it too sweet to eat more than a tiny bit at a time, which was probably a good thing!

                                                                                             
 I am sending this to Cook Blog Share, hosted by Lucy at SuperGoldenBakes, to share this recipe with other bloggers.

I am also sharing this with Let's Cook for Halloween, hosted by Simply Food.

These rocky road squares cookies are also perfect for the Treat Petite challenge, hosted by Kat at Baking Explorer and Stuart at Cakeyboi, as the theme is trick or treat.

I think these also fit the theme of comfort food, so I'm sending these to the Biscuit Barrel challenge, hosted by Laura at I'd Much Rather Bake Than.

Halloween is the theme for We Should Cocoa, so I am sending this to Hannah at Honey and Dough, who is hosting the challenge on behalf of Choclette at Chocolate Log Blog.