rocky road squares

With my inaugural post I felt that it would be best to talk about something near and dear to my heart – marshmallows. This wonderfully deelish invention is something I really liked when I was a child but absolutely adore as an adult. I’m not much of a coffee drinker but I love a good hot chocolate with lots of marshmallows. I’ll eat them raw, roasted, toasted, melted, in a s’more, in a chocolate bar or a cookie and I love them in Wagon Wheels. I just plain like marshmallows so of course I had to write about a great recipe with you.

Growing up I remember that my mother made these absolutely amazing squares only around Christmas time. Rocky Road Squares or bars if you will and they had a bunch of my favourite things – chocolate, peanut butter and yes, the marshmallow. Now you can make them with plain white marshmallow but my personal favourite is the coloured kind. The Tutti Fruity Mini marshmallow if you will. The squares would melt in your mouth and really you could only eat just one at a time but it was so worth it.

Being in my own home for the first time this Christmas, I wanted to bring a little of those Christmases back by making some rocky road squares myself. I thought this would be an easy thing to do in that I’d seen them all over. But everywhere I looked I couldn’t quite find the right recipe. I decided to mash a few together that sounded good and created my own. And here it is:

Rocky Road Squares, QuirkyCori Style

• 1 cup graham cracker crumbs
• ¼ cup melted butter/margarine
• ¼ cup honey
• 1 cup chocolate chips
• 3 tbsp Peanut Butter
• 2 cups mini marshmallows (rainbow colour preferred)

Part 1: Georgeous Graham Cracker Base
(Seriously wish I had a picture it looked fantastic!)

Preheat oven to 375. In a mixing bowl, mash the top three ingredients together. Pour into an 8×8 square pan. (I didn’t have one so I used some wonderful Corningware – just added a bit more crumbs and honey.) Using your fingers press down so the mixture covers the area evenly and completely. Place in oven for 8 minutes.

While waiting for that to cook begin the next step.

Part 2: The Sweet Stuff
In a small pot combine the peanut butter and chocolate chips. Heat over medium while constantly stirring to ensure nothing burns. (You don’t want to destroy the sweet stuff!) Once the chocolate chips and peanut butter have reached a fairly liquid state and no more chips are visable, turn the heat to low and stir occasionally.

Part 3: Fantastic Finishing touches
Once your timer has gone off, carefully bring your pan out of the oven and place on a cooling rack. (I don’t have one so the top of the stove worked fine.) While still hot, sprinkle the marshmallows evenly over the top of the crust. I know the crust will look great so take a moment and admire your work before covering it in deliciousness. Once the marshmallows are even, quickly stir the sweet stuff and pour evenly over everything. It may get stuck in crevices so you may need to gently push it around with a spoon. This is okay – but be gentle, you may start to get melted marshmallows rather than a rocky road that you want.

Once completely covered put in the fridge to cool. Very important – this must cool completely before cutting. Depending on personal preference, this should make approximately 16 squares.