Forget Fudge—This Classic British Dessert Is the Best No-Bake Holiday Treat

When Americans hear “rocky road,” we usually think of chocolate ice cream with nuts and marshmallows. What many people don’t know, however, is that the flavor is inspired by the British treat of the same name. The British candy contains similar ingredients—in its most basic form, it’s a fudge-like confection of crushed up digestive biscuits and mini marshmallows held together by a mixture of chocolate, butter, and golden syrup. The mixture is spread into a pan, chilled, then sliced and served for a simple, no-bake treat.

Many British home cooks and grocery stores put their own twists on the dessert, such as using Biscoff or Oreo cookies instead of digestive biscuits or using white chocolate instead of milk or dark chocolate in the base. There are also plenty of seasonal spins. You might see rocky road with pink marshmallows and candy hearts for Valentine’s Day and versions packed with Cadbury mini eggs in the weeks leading up to Easter. Come Christmas, bakers may give the candy festive flair by swapping digestive biscuits for amaretti cookies or ginger snaps. Really, you could stir in whatever odds and ends—such as nuts, seeds, dried fruit, and honeycomb—you have in the pantry. The sky’s the limit.

A Brief History of Rocky Road 

Like many foods, rocky road’s origin story is murky and hard to verify. Though it’s a classic British confection, some food historians say that Australians invented the treat in the 1850s as a means of repurposing ingredients that were damaged during the long boat journey from the UK. “In the mid-19th century, confectionery that didn’t survive the trip across the ocean from England to Australia was glued together with sub-standard chocolate and repackaged as rocky road,” journalist Sofia Levin wrote in a 2022 Broadsheet article. “Some sources say the name refers to the ‘rocky road’ of the journey, others the perilous path traversed by hopefuls in search of gold.” 

Today, the no-bake confection remains equally popular in the UK and in Australia, where rocky road recipes typically feature shredded coconut (a nod to the country’s popular Rocklea Road candy bar), and sometimes chewy ingredients like Turkish delight or gummy fruit candies. While the US is best known for rocky road in ice cream form, references to the candy began appearing in American popular culture in the 1920s, when the Orchid Sweet Shop in Santa Cruz, California advertised Rocky Road Creams. Another confectioner, California-based Annabelle Candy Company, has manufactured their Rocky Road candy bar (made with marshmallow, roasted cashews, and milk chocolate) since the 1950s. Regardless of origin, one thing remains certain: With creamy chocolate, crunchy biscuits, chewy fruit, and fluffy marshmallows packed into every bite, this easy one-bowl treat is sure to satisfy any sweet tooth.

Key Components for Great Rocky Road

Dark chocolate and milk chocolate are a winning combination. Though you can use whatever chocolate you’d like, I recommend using a mixture of milk and dark chocolate. While dark chocolate has a pleasant bittersweet flavor, it is firmer than milk chocolate when set, as it contains more cocoa solids and cocoa butter. There are versions of rocky road made entirely with white chocolate, milk chocolate, or dark chocolate, but I like to use a combination of milk and dark chocolates, which prevents the confection from being too firm when set and results in a texture that’s easy to slice and bite into. What kind of chocolate you use ultimately comes down to your personal preference; feel free to play around with different percentages and combinations, just keep in mind that the kind of chocolate you use will impact the rocky road’s final texture.

Wait for your chocolate to cool a bit before you add the other ingredients. Once you’ve added the butter and golden syrup, it’s essential to let the mixture sit at room temperature for about 15 minutes before incorporating the other ingredients. This prevents the marshmallows from melting and ensures you’ll have chewy marshmallows—rather than melty streaks—in each slice.

Don’t forget the crunch. Crumbly and mildly sweet, digestive biscuits are quintessentially British and give rocky road its signature crunch. There isn’t a direct American equivalent, so it’s worth purchasing imported digestive biscuits from an international grocery store or online. If you can’t find digestive biscuits or simply want to mix it up, opt for a dry, crunchy cookie, such as vanilla wafers, store-bought chocolate chip cookies, wafer cookies like Oreos, or speculoos cookies such as Biscoff instead.

Butter and golden syrup or light corn syrup are essential for the right texture. Golden syrup, an ingredient popular in British baking, is a honey-colored syrup with caramel notes similar to corn syrup. The combination of butter and golden syrup make an extra-sweet and creamy rocky road, but they also serve a practical purpose: Fat and invert sugar prevent the chocolate from setting too firmly and also minimize the risk of the chocolate crystallizing. (Similarly, candymakers frequently add corn syrup to caramel, chocolate ganache, or ice cream for a more pliable texture.) If you can’t find golden syrup, you can substitute light corn syrup instead. (Some recipes for rocky road use honey and maple syrup, but I haven’t tested those myself and can’t guarantee the recipe will work with either ingredient.)

Use dried or glazed fruit, not fresh or moist fruit. Sometimes sold as candied cherries, glazed cherries, or holiday fruit, sticky glacé cherries add a sweet and chewy note. If glacé cherries aren’t readily available, don’t replace them with maraschino cherries, as they have too much moisture and will reduce the shelf life of the confection. For an alternate take, try replacing the glacé cherries with dried cranberries, dried cherries, raisins, or mixed dried fruit.

Keep your marshmallows small. For the most classically British version of rocky road, you can stir in both white and pink mini marshmallows, but using just plain white mini marshmallows (or any other color you like) will work just fine. Avoid full-size marshmallows—which are too big—and the dehydrated kind, which lack the spongy marshmallow texture essential to a good rocky road.

Make a parchment sling. This technique takes just a minute, and makes removing the slab of rocky road from the pan much simpler. All you have to do is line the pan with two strips of parchment to form an X, allowing a one inch overhang on all sides, before scraping the rocky road mixture into the pan. Once chilled, you can use the parchment “handles” to easily lift the candy from the pan to the cutting board for portioning.

Keep it simple or mix things up. Stir in nuts, seeds, chopped candy bars, malted milk balls, dried cranberries or cherries, crushed popcorn, or pieces of honeycomb, or add shredded coconut, gummy candies, or Turkish delight for Australian-style rocky road. Though the delicious possibilities are endless, I recommend limiting yourself to two additional mix-ins, and no more than 50g (about 1/4 cup) of each. Too many extras will upset the ratio of  chocolate to dry ingredients, and your rocky road will become unpleasantly crumbly instead of smooth and sliceable.

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