This is for whoever is looking after kids this Easter hols! Keeping the wee ‘uns occupied on rainy days while satisfying their relentlessly voracious appetites can be a session of culinary medicine education and life skills making a healthy Rocky Road sweet treat.
What is this sorcery, I hear you cry? Yes, an easy Rocky Road can be so nutritionally beneficial that you’ll be able to polish your healthy eating halo while they feast on what looks like a major sugar fest.
Rocky Road is an incredibly simple combo of ingredients – one bowl, no baking. In normal form, it’s pretty high on the unhealthy scale – low cocoa solid chocolate, marshmallows, biscuits and so on. Here’s where culinary medicine comes in – what ingredients can be swapped or added to reduce negative impact and increase benefits? Ones that take out sugar, add protein and healthy fats, massively increase nutrients, and nourish instead of fuel and fill.
This Rocky Road does that in spades. I make it for my son – he’s 30, but they never grow out of a bit of Mum’s baking!! And the nutritional makeover?
- Good quality high cocoa solids chocolate – at least 50%;
- Local honey instead of Golden Syrup – local honey helps protect against local pollens and has enzymes and compounds not contained in commercially produced honey or Golden Syrup (pure sugar with no health benefits);
- A few classic Rich Tea biscuits – simple biscuits that add crunch without being too sugary;
- Nuts and seeds instead of higher amount of biscuits – upping the protein and healthy fats as well as adding huge amounts of nutrients as well as creating texture;
- Small amount of marshmallows to adhere to original ingredients and vary texture;
- Butter is just butter! It has health benefits so don’t swap for margarine. You could use coconut oil if you have it;
- Plus a compromise – hundreds and thousands on top because he always loved them!!
Healthy eating is always a compromise with kids – go too far and they will ‘escape’ to do what their friends do as soon as they can. Give in to grumbling too easily and they will not develop healthy habits, get to appreciate good food or learn about balanced diets. Add a glass of organic milk and the glycaemic load is reduced still further, preventing sugar rushes!
A healthy relationship with food and the right cooking skills are the best gifts you can give your kids – show them that healthy eating still means pleasure and cake, and that everything they put in their mouths will be either nourishing them or potentially stressing their systems. Give this a go, and let me know what they thought.
Rocky Road Healthified
A potent combo of vitamins, minerals, and compounds, particularly magnesium, iron, beta carotene, lutein, zeaxanthin, alpha-linoleic acid, DHA, EPA, butyric acid, copper, manganese, zinc, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, selenium, and so much more.
No measurements necessary!
- A couple of bars of cooking chocolate – you can use one dark and one milk to raise the overall cocoa solids
- Local honey
- A good chunk of butter
- A few Rich Tea biscuits
- A few marshmallows – small pieces
- Nuts and seeds of choice, nuts chopped
- Any other topping or ingredients you like – dried fruit, for instance
One bowl method:
Break up the chocolate in a bowl and melt gently, either over a pan of water or low in the microwave, along with the butter. Mix well. Add some honey, maybe a couple of table spoons and mix. Next chuck in your dry ingredients in parts and mix in until you have the consistency and combo you fancy. Push into a baking tin or dish lined with baking paper, top with whatever toppings you want (more nuts and seeds, hundreds and thousands, etc) and refrigerate until hardened, then cut into pieces. Keep in a tin somewhere cool – the fridge will alter the taste and consistency of the chocolate.
Most of all, enjoy!