Snowy Rocky Road

Christmas fever – I used to make my own crackers but after doing them for at least twenty years, I decided to ‘get a life’  But I still like a little table gift as a place name, so I have done boxes / silver tubes / metal tins etc. since. Guests really appreciated an extra little gift but I got so tired of searching for lovely special unique little things that fitted into the box / silver tube / metal tin. This year I am taking a break!

This is Snowy Rocky Road (thanks Su Bonfanti, for the recipe). It is really pretty sparkly chocolate and it is home-made (or I should say home-collated). I made the gold packets and for a sense of drama (we shall be dining in the conservatory filled with fairy lights) I will use my black table cloth, with the packets, lots of tea-lights and white napkins. See how to make the packets here.

My Christmas table colour scheme: gold, black, white: I am the Queen of metallic gold-spray, so I will spray some holly to put with candles and have a grand gold-sprayed pineapple surrounded by tea lights on a glass cake-stand on the black cloth as a centrepiece. I did this years ago for a 21st and its sensational! By contrast all my Christmas gifts will be wrapped in kraft paper with stripey string and pretty ticket-style labels, and gold sprayed ivy. Forget about the calligraphy – my family don’t appreciate it for the time it takes. I keep that for weddings.

SNOWY ROCKY ROAD

This is really pretty and Christmassy – in a romantic snowy sort of way.
(Sainsbury’s White Belgian Cooking chocolate has the same ingredients as ‘posh’ Belgian chocolate, just cheaper wrapping and it comes in 200g not 100g. It costs much less.

Makes 8 X 70g bags with a little over for the cook to taste to make sure it is yummy.

• 400g white chocolate, broken into bits into a glass heatproof bowl
• 25g mini marshmallows (the larger packs have slightly bigger marshmallows and brighter pink)
• 50g dried cranberries, chopped
• 50g pistachios, chopped slightly – enough to show the pretty colour
• 50g broken biscuits – about 5 ginger nuts or digestives.
• Sparkles: silver glitter or luminous flakes.

1. Line an 8″ round tin with clingfilm.
2. Melt the choc in the microwave: 1 min at full power, then stir and return for 20 secs at a time, until melted and smooth. It is important to do this slowly because white choc burns easily.
3. Stir in the marshmallows, cranberries, pistachios and biscuit.
4. Pour into the tin.
5. Scatter sparkly dust  over the top. You can buy this at specialist cook shops.
6. Put it in the fridge to get solid.
7. Break it into chunks and package in C6 cello-bags.

Yummmm.