Chocolate

Japharrell Cake

Baking, Cake, Dessert, Sweets

Full disclosure, I had zero idea why Pharrell was so burnt out and in need of a catch-up. I assumed being a Grammy Award winning, Academy Award nominee was enough to be exhausted?

Turns out, it wasn’t the entire story.

Pha-Pha, as I call him, arrived straight off the plane from LA late last night completely spent after a gruelling season on The Voice. After two hours of him explaining to me that he wasn’t talking about the Australian version and that I needed to put down the knife and relax, he fell into my arms, exhausted and looking for the comfort of a true friend.

I first met Pharrell in the 1700s in the 90s as a founding member of N*E*R*D. Despite being ejected from the band after it was discovered I thought it was a fetish dating site, Pha-Pha took me under his wing as his immortal business protege before I eventually became a muse. Fun fact, the drawing scene from Titanic was inspired by the moment I entered into his … muse-dom?

Needless to say, I’ve played a crucial part in all of Relly’s future successes and have been his go to person. I’m the Yang to his Grey, if that is still a thing – I don’t know, I gave up after Izzie cut the damn LVAD and Snow Patrol became a thing in the mainstream.

Also, is Snow Patrol a band or a barbershop quartet consisting of Mr Plow and the Plow King?

But I’ve digressed.

Rel dropped by after wrapping the US version of The Voice (produced by my dear pal Mark Burnett) where – I shit you not / *spoiler alert* – Curly Sue took the crown. Sadly his contestant, Hannah … Horvath (? – I assume it is a characters of fiction edition) could only snag third, despite a stellar finale performance.

Needless to say, he is a sensitive soul and was taking the loss very hard meaning the only thing that could cure his mood and turn his frown upside down, was my Japharrell Cake.

 

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While Jaffas are the worst coated chocolate treat, this cake is off the hook. Maybe it is the inclusion of blood orange oil – rather than its generic sibling orange oil – but the moist, bitter chocolate cake combined with the tang of the citrus is something to behold. Plus, it melts in your mouth and quite literally, is dripping in ganache (if you’re too lazy to let it set/cool, like I am).

Enjoy!

 

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Japharrell Cake
Serves: 1-12.

Ingredients
200ml blood orange oil
70g valrhona cocoa powder (sifted)
165ml boiling water
2 ½ tsp vanilla extract
200g almond meal
¾ tsp bicarbonate of soda
pinch of salt
265g caster sugar
4 large eggs

Ganache
225g dark chocolate, 70% solids or more
1 cup heavy cream
pinch of salt

Method
Preheat the oven to 170°C and grease a 20cm springform pan with some olive oil and the base with baking paper.

Place the cocoa powder in a small bowl and whisk with the boiling water until smooth. Add in the vanilla extract and leave to cool.

Combine the almond meal, bicarb and salt in a large bowl.

In the large bowl of an electric mixer, combine the sugar, oil and eggs and mix with the paddle attachment on high speed for about 5 minutes. Reduce the speed and pour in the cooled cocoa mixture. When combined, add the almond meal in slowly.

Scrape down the sides, pour the mixture into the pan and bake for 45 minutes or until the cake is set but with a nice moist centre.

Moist – I love that word.

When it is ready, allow to cool on a wire rack for about 10 minutes before removing the sides from the pan. Then leave to cool completely (unless you can’t like me).

While the cake is cooling, start on the ganache by bring the cream to the boil over medium heat. While the cream is getting all hot and bothered, break up the chocolate in a medium bowl.

When the cream is hot, pour it over the chocolate, add a pinch of salt and leave to stand for five minutes.

Five minutes later – and I mean that – whisk the cream and chocolate until combined and smooth. Allow to stand for a further 15 minutes, stirring ocassionally, before pouring over the cake and smoothing it out.

Obviously I didn’t wait for either to cool or set, resulting in the puddle cake … which was still delicious, FYI.

 

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Cookiki Dee

Baking, Dessert, Sweets

I’ve always said that once you’ve forced someone to administer at home, self-designed electroshock therapy, you truly are bonded for life. Keeks, obvs, being my case-in-point.

After meeting as part of Dusty’s entourage, Kiki took me in and my gratitude lead to 96.7% of her successes. We left the back-up singer scene as I groomed her for greatness by acting as her image consultant, coining her stage name, writing her songs and giving her extensive albeit un-required  vocal coaching (amongst many other tasks), leading to her signing by Motown records in the 70s.

Then Elton happened and they couldn’t break my heart, even if they tried.

At the time I was pioneering colonic procedures and Elton, who I had taken as a part-time lover / songwriting partner, after being hired to manage the percentage of sequin and sparkle on his clothing, was one of my first clients. Maybe he found a qualified technician and that caused our feud – who knows?

Either way, Elty begged me to introduce him to Keeks and allow him to take the male vocals of their hit duet Don’t Go Breakin’ My Heart and, being cock whipped, did. Birthing the world’s greatest duet … behind Doll and Ken.

Keeks and I have lost touch a bit in the late 90s when I, and I’m sorry to say this, forgot she existed. Thankfully Singstar happened and we reconnected.

Keeks is thankfully doing great and is just as effervescent as she was when we first met – we even dueted on my roof top for my irate neighbours. At least we had some excess Cookiki Dees to throw out as a reward / use as weapons against any critics.

 

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I have probably mentioned it before – and if I haven’t, I am very disappointed in myself – but I fucking love me some Milk Bar. It is somewhere that I would (and literally have) trudge through a blizzard to get to for a bagel bomb, cereal milk and crack pie. If you are within 50km – or whatever the equivalent in miles is – run, go there now and devour one of everything … EVERYTHING, in my honour.

As someone that worships at the altar of Christina Tosi and David Chang, I routinely try to emulate their creations with mediocre-at-best success to delicious success (see: Alexander Smarsbård Cake). These chocolate, pretzel and peanut delights, thankfully, fall toward the latter end of the spectrum; salty, milky and chewy … they are delicious.

And make me miss Elts – enjoy!

 

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Cookiki Dee
Makes: 12-16.

Ingredients
225g unsalted butter, room temperature
1 ¼  cups raw caster sugar
⅔ cup packed muscovado sugar
1 large egg
½ tsp vanilla extract
1 ½ cups flour
1 ¼ tsp coarse salt
½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp baking soda
⅔ cup mini chocolate chips
⅓ cup peanut butter chips
1 cup mini marshmallows

Pretzel peanut crunch
2 cups pretzels
1 cup peanuts, roughly chopped
⅓ cup milk powder
3 tbsp caster sugar
1 tsp coarse salt
130g butter, melted

Method
Preheat the oven to 135°C and get cracking on the crunch.

Place the pretzels in a medium bowl and crush with your hands until they are small 1cm-ish chunks, this is particularly great if you sit near a chatty Cathy, friendship-rapist at work and need to work through your rage.

Add the milk powder, sugar and salt and give a good toss to combine. Again, missing Elts right now. Stir through the butter until it comes together into crumbs.

Place cornflakes in a medium bowl. Using your hands, crush to one-quarter of their original size. Add peanuts, milk powder, sugar, and salt; toss to combine. Add butter and toss to form small clusters.

Spread the mixture in an even layer on a large, lined baking sheet and bake until the clusters are toasted, crisp and buttery, about 20 minutes. Remove from oven and leave to cool completely.

Once the clusters are cool, get to work creaming the butter and sugars in the large bowl of an electric mixer, using the paddle attachment, for about 3 minutes on medium-high speed. Scrape down the sides, add the egg and vanilla and return to medium-high speed for a further 8 minutes.

Yes, 8 … and it makes all the difference.

Once the butter is fluffy and glorious, turn the mixer off and add the flour, salt, bakings powder and soda. Remove the paddle and mix until it is combined enough not to go all over the kitchen.

Return the paddle to the mixer and turn on to the lowest setting, add the crunch, chocolate and peanut butter chips and marshmallows and mix until combined. About a minute.

Line a couple of large baking sheet with greaseproof paper. Using a ⅓ cup measuring … cup, portion the  dough out onto prepared baking sheet, leaving about 10cm between each dollop. Pat the top of the dough flat, wrap tightly with cling and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. Trust me from experience/the photos, do not bake the cookies from room temperature or they will not hold their shape and you carve them out of the pan. Still delicious, but not as sexy.

Preheat oven to 190°C.

Once the dough has netflixed and chilled, transfer to the oven and bake until puffed, cracked, spread and lightly browned on the edges, about 18 minutes … but keep watch anywhere after 10, ok?

Remove from the oven and leave to cool completely on baking sheets. If you can.

 

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Chris Rocky Road

Dessert, Snack, Sweets

Despite all of his pre-show panic and nerves, Chris is going to do such a great job hosting next weekend – he barely even needed me to tart up his script and makes the jokes punchier! He will perfectly balance the important political message of equality with humour and heart … but I’m giving too much away.

Chris and I have always had a very hands-on but not in the way you’d expect from me relationship, standing together during the good times and the bad and helping each other whenever the other is in a personal, professional or spiritual pickle.

I spent the early 90s enjoying life as part of his entourage at 30 Rock while he was on SNL – it was pre-Lorne’s ban – before encouraging him to focus on his fledgling movie career with such hits as the shockingly Oscar-snubbed Sgt. Bilko.

We were kept apart for a decade or so by geography with my many stints in rehab and prison, but that never lessened our bond and when catching-up it is always like no time has passed.

With important work to do finalising his script, I knew there was only one thing to do – make him his favourite Chris Rocky Road.

 

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As I rule, I grew up hating rocky road as jelly was foul and pink marshmallows confused me – I also thought it was spelt Rocklea Road and that angered me. I was, obviously, thrown into a fit of rage when once Chris requested some in the SNL writers room until he explained both the correct spelling and that pink marshmallows can just be binned.

With that I got to work combining all of our favourite things, peanut butter, pretzels and chocolate and the sweet, salty and ultimately glorious Chris Rocky Road was born.

Enjoy!

 

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Chris Rocky Road
Makes: 24 large chunks.

Ingredients
100g peanut butter chips
250g dark chocolate
150g milk chocolate
175g soft butter
60ml golden syrup
200g pretzels
150g peanuts
150g freeze-dried strawberries, roughly chopped
100g white marshmallows, chopped
icing sugar, for dusting

Method
Place peanut butter chips in the freezer.

Melt the dark and milk chocolate with the butter and syrup in a heavy bottomed saucepan over a low heat.

Place the pretzels in a freezer bag and bash them with a rolling pin to get a variety of sized pieces.

Empty into a large bowl with the peanuts, strawberries and marshmallows. Take the pan of the heat and mix the chocolate through to combine. Remove the peanut butter chips from the freezer and mix through.

Tip the mix into a lined square baking tray, smoothing it as much as possible. Place in the fridge until firm enough to set and cut, a couple of hours.

Place on a plate, dust with icing sugar and devour.

 

As you can probably tell, we are very social but the fun isn’t only limited to celebrities! You can follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr and Google+.

Mont LeBlanc

Dessert, Sweets

Bless little Matty – he is such a doll!

While he doesn’t enjoy being upstaged by my animatronic pet chimpanzees or Matt Pez’s … sarcastic punchlines, he is a ride or die friend. Fun fact, our friendship inspired the entire Fast and or Furious saga – RIP Paul Walker (thank you for the Joy Ride your buns gave me).

Sure, as is the custom with being our friend, we have had some rough times after he refused to give his Married … with Children co-star and our legal guardian Christina Applegate a role in Lost in Space (ugh, Heather Grahvom), but he was kind enough to forgive us for advising him that a Joey spin-off was a good idea, so we are even.

Matty really helped put me back on the right path and work through my guilt and grief of what has happened over Christmas – oh, FYI, I am actually Annelie’s evil twin Ennelie.

I’ve had such a busy week – what with hosting Nigella Lawson’s Brisbane Q&A and acting as a mentor to David Sedaris – that I barely had time for poor Matt. Thankfully Nigella gave me the idea for a speedy Mont LeBlanc.

 

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While I have to give credit to dear Nigey for the original express version of a Mont Blanc – I will blow my own trumpet and say that melting the chocolate and whipping it through the chestnut makes for a smoother, sweeter dessert.

Enjoy!

 

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Mont LeBlanc
Serves: 4.

Ingredients
100g good-quality dark chocolate
1/4 tsp almond essence
500ml double cream
2 meringue nests
500g sweetened chestnut purée

Method
Break the chocolate into a medium, microwavable bowl and melt in the microwave on high for ten second intervals until down. Leave to cool slightly.

Place the cream in a large bowl and lightly whip it until soft peaks form. Fold through one of the crumbled meringues.

In an electric mixer, whisk the chestnut purée on medium speed and add in the chocolate and almond essence, continuing to whisk for a minute to combine.

Spread the chocolate/chestnut mixture evenly amongst four martini glasses, top with the cream/meringue mixture and crumbled excess meringue.

Devour immediately and pretend you made the purée and meringue from scratch and were very busy.

 

As you can probably tell, we are very social but the fun isn’t only limited to celebrities! You can follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr and Google+.

Pistashaio Fox Cake

Cake, Dessert, Survivor: Cambodia - Second Chance, Sweets

It has been a struggle watching our frenemy Tasha Fox survive tribal council after tribal council this season.

Unfortunately, we have a checkered history with Tasha. After Andrew Keegan dragged us into the Danny Tanner Full Circle cult, we were forced to recruit new members. Naturally, we looked toward other cult-like organisations and deep within the trenches of one, we found our Tasha.

Tasha took on the Full Circle identity of Kimmy Gibbler – and was truly Kimmy in every sense. Her grating personality and all-round irritable presence made her such a perfect Kimmy she eventually replaced us as Krishna the parrot’s guardian. Not cool Tasha/Kimmy Gibbler!

Although Full Circle was eventually exposed and disbanded, our deep hatred of Tasha was enduring. That said, to see her receive a golden goose egg of votes has made me want to give her some comfort and try to reignite what was once a glorious friendship. After all, we did kind of ruin her life with that whole cult thing.

What says ‘I’m sorry’ and simultaneously ‘you still annoy the living turdcakes out of me’?

 

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The Pistashaio Fox Cake is the perfect way to make amends with an old frenemy. The heavenly thick chocolate ganache can literally gloss over the oldest of friendship wounds.

 

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Pistashaio Fox Cake
Serves: 16

Ingredients
1 cup plain flour
1/2 cup pistachio meal
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoons instant coffee
2 eggs
3/4 cup caster sugar
1/4 cup coconut oil
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup boiling water
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
200g dark chocolate
1/2 cup thickened cream
80g shelled, halved pistachios

Method
Preheat oven to 180C. Grease a rectangular cake tin.

In a large bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, pistachio meal, sugar and cocoa powder. Add eggs, milk, water, oil, vanilla and coffee and stir until combined.

Pour into prepared tin (batter will be quite thin) and bake for 30-35 minutes or until risen and cooked through. Allow to cool.

To ice, cut chocolate into very fine slithers and place in heat-proof bowl. Gently heat cream in a small saucepan until just scalded. Pour cream over chocolate slithers and leave to sit for five minutes.

After five minutes, stir until ganache is smooth. Pour over cake and top with pistachios. Refrigerate until ganache is set.

 

As you can probably tell, we are very social but the fun isn’t only limited to celebrities! You can follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr and Google+.

White Kristmas Jenner

Keeping it Kardashian Khristmas, Snack, Sweets

While publicity whoring is something we clearly have in common with the Kardashian-Jenner klan, naturally our history goes back quite some way with mother hen, Kris.

Ben and I first met Kris when we were trying to start yet another ponzi scheme, this time involving somewhat controversial and unorthodox dieting methods. Kris was entering the mainstream after that whole O.J Simpson thing, looking to leverage her personal fame and attempting to launch her new identity, LudaKris.

Ben, LudaKris and I formed a magical business partnership fondly known as Jenny Kraig. Lose 10 pounds in 10 days? That’s LudaKris! Alas, it was ludicrous and we quickly went out of business.

Despite our early failures, LudaKris eventually decided to go sans-Luda and embrace the momager she was destined to be. What klassy treat can we share with our klassy pal?

 

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White Kristmas is everything a festive treat should be – klassic, kolourful and full of kflavour.

 

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White Kristmas
Serves: 16

Ingredients
1 cup shelled pistachios, finely chopped
1 cup dried cranberries
500g white chocolate
2 cups rice bubbles
1 cup shredded coconut
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Method
Half fill a medium saucepan with water and place on medium heat. Line and grease a rectangular slice tray.

Combine pistachios, cranberries, rice bubbles and coconut in a large bowl.

Place a heatproof metal bowl over saucepan of simmering water. Add white chocolate to bowl and melt over gentle heat. Once just melted stir in vanilla.

Add chocolate and vanilla mixture to dry ingredients and stir until just combined. Pour into prepared pan and refrigerate until set.

 

As you can probably tell, we are very social but the fun isn’t only limited to celebrities! You can follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr and Google+.

Linda Bundt Cake

Cake, Dessert, Sweets

We often discuss how haters and the cynical would likely assume our friendships are all fake and for attention or to better position ourselves, but hands-on-our-hearts these people are truly our friends (we aren’t Real Housewives here guys) and none are closer to us, than dearest Linda Hunt.

So close, that Linda doesn’t trust anyone but us to cut her hair. We first took over the role of hairdresser the weekend of the ‘84 Oscars; we were on an epic coke binge the night before the show, which was the style of the time. Linds noticed she needed a trim before her moment in the spotlight, so Annelie and I stepped up to the plate and her signature hairstyle was born.

While we have been known to miss the mark on occasion, Linda has never held our relapses that result in Gale-in-Scream 3-esque fringes against us.

The last couple of days have just been a dream; touring the city, gossiping about Mel and Chris and reminiscing about all the good times we have shared. We needed something sweet to cap off her stay, so went with a delicious Linda Bundt Cake.

 

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I am an absolute fiend for peanut butter and chocolate, so first made the filling as a test of how compatible Linda, Annelie and I were for friendship. Between the salty goodness of the peanut butter and the creamy sweetness of the chocolate, they passed with flying colours and the cake became tradition.

Enjoy!

 

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Linda Bundt Cake
Serves: 8.

Ingredients
Chocolate peanut butter filling
75g plain flour
30g soft unsalted butter
1 tsp ground cinnamon
150g crunchy peanut butter
125g chocolate, melted

Cake
300g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
125g soft unsalted butter
150g caster sugar
2 eggs
250ml sour cream
icing sugar, to garnish

Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C. Generously grease a 23cm bundt tin and place to the side.

First, start on the filling by mixing together the flour and butter with a fork, until you end up with a wet sand looking mixture that clumps together. Then mix in the cinnamon, peanut butter and melted chocolate, to form a sticky, claggy paste. Set aside, it can hang with the bundt tin and bond.

Now on to the cake batter! Combine the flour, baking powder and bicarb into a bowl.

Cream the butter and sugar until light and pale in an electric mixer, then beat in 1 tablespoon of the flour mixture, then 1 egg. Then beat in another tablespoonful of flour mixture, you guessed it, followed by the remaining egg. With the mixer still running, add the rest of the flour mixture, once combined add the sour cream and mix until you have a light, thick batter. That isn’t very long, btw.

Spoon roughly half the cake batter into the bundt tin, pushing the mixture up the sides and the middle to create a coating of batter on the sides with a trough in the middle, otherwise you will have some filling leakage and that would be awkward.

With that, spoon the gooey filling into the through in the batter. Cover the filling with the remaining batter, smooth the top and place in the oven to bake for 40 minutes, checking with a cake tester after 30 minutes.

Once done aka the cake tester comes out clean where it hits the sponge, let the cake cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes in its tin before trying to turn out. After the waiting time, loosen the edges including the centre part and turn the cake out onto the rack.

When cooled completely, lightly dust with icing sugar and devour. Or just eat when slightly warm and let the still gooey centre fill you with joy.

 

As you can probably tell, we are very social but the fun isn’t only limited to celebrities! You can follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr and Google+.

Hot Coco Austin

Drink

Let it be said and then repeated over and over again, Coco Austin is a saint.

I mean, not only did she look out for us on the cut throat dance circuit (trust me, it was way worse than Compton) but she has gifted us with the idea that, mark my words, will lead to a Tony.

Coco knew that our beautiful story from rival dancers with rival stage Momagers (Annelie was the greatest Momager I could have hoped for), through the aforementioned years when she protected us from Mary Murphy (she was Naomi Campbell to our Tyra Banks) to when Annelie introduced her to Ice and we all egged Meg Ryan’s home, was destined for the stage and knowing how talented we are as a trio, she knew that we were the only ones who could do it justice.

We have some money set aside from when Annelie and I scammed our dear friend Joan Rivers into listing us as the charity during her winning stint on Celebrity Family Feud (Ice and Coco threw the game for us), so feel the time is right to invest in our future plaudits.

We convinced her to leave that part out of the musical over a nice warm mug of Hot Coco Austin. Sadly though I have to relive the humiliation of being rejected as a Playboy model. I guess my torrid affair with Heff will make a good story though.

 

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The key to amazing hot chocolate is cinnamon. Well actually, peanut butter is also amazing (you could remove cinnamon from the recipe and replace 1tsp peanut butter), but there is something so warmly, delightful and festive about cinnamon and chocolate.

Just don’t have it in 30° heat, or do. Get wild. Enjoy!

 

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Hot Coco Austin
Makes: 1.

Ingredients
250(ish)ml milk
50(ish)g dark chocolate
1(ish)tsp raw sugar
generous(ish) pinch cinnamon
cream, for whippin’
extra chocolate, for gratin’

Method
Heat the milk, stirring constantly(ish), in a small saucepan over low heat.

When warm and starting to foam/bubble around the edge, remove from heat and stir in the chocolate and cinnamon until combined. Return to heat and cook for a couple(ish) minutes.

Remove from heat. Whip cream. Pour hot chocolate into a mug. Top with whipped cream and grated chocolate. Or extra cinnamon.

Also ish, obviously.

Tina Souffle

Dessert, Easter Meggstravaganza

Step five is always a blessing and a curse. As Peter Parker famously said, with being a hero comes great power and great responsibility – so trying to pin down Teenz is always a tad difficult.

After we failed to befriend Amy Poehler through Adam Scott, we travelled back in time to the Delaware County Summer Showtime to befriend Tina in her (our?) younger years. It worked and thankfully, history was rewritten with the four of us being best friends (she totally got us in with Ames). Her love for us knows no bounds and she went on to write 30 Rock with Tracey Jordan and Jenna Maroney being based on us. We were also instrumental in the writing of Mean Girls, which was actually a thinly veiled attack at our less successful co-stars at the County Summer Showtime.

Tina was always keen as mustard to help us out with our blossoming careers. She got us auditions with Saturday Night Live, however Ben was overly keen to sleep his way in (even when this was explicitly not necessary). He peddled one junk-shot too many unfortunately and Lorne Michaels banished both of us from the studio, swearing our names would never be uttered on set again and rendering us the unofficial voldemorts of NBC.

Despite trashing the brilliant opportunities Tina generously found us, she still considers us two of her oldest friends. She is always willing to help out so jumped at the opportunity to help another person in dire straits – Meg Ryan and her pitiful, failing career.

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As Tina is the gold standard in entertainment, we needed the gold standard of desserts. Chocolatey and rich yet light and delicious like the lady herself, the Tina Souffle ticks all the boxes.

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Tina Souffle
Serves: 6

Ingredients
6 eggs, separated
180g dark chocolate
50ml cream
50g caster sugar
Butter and caster sugar, for ramekins

Method
Heat oven to 200C. Butter and sugar the ramekins.

Over a low heat, melt the chocolate and cream together and allow to cool slightly before whisking in six egg yolks.

Using a stand mixer, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form and slowly add caster sugar until a thick meringue forms.

Rocky Reid Road

12 Days of Survivor Christmas, Dessert

In a season that bought us Dreams, Yau-Man and the delightful Earl you may ask yourselves, why did Ben and I fall so hard for Survivor Fiji contestant Rocky Reid and his serious lack of charm?

Naturally, we have history.

Ben and Rocky were fierce competitors in the 1994 National Sylvester Stallone doppelganger competition in which I was Ben’s micromanaging, cruel and generally narcissistic coach/momager. While Rocky was crowned the winner, Ben went on to body-double for Sly for hit films including Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot and the glorious Rhinestone (we can time travel, remember). Rocky couldn’t handle Ben’s success on the big screen and so naturally the two wound up in a relationship-destroying gutter brawl.

Despite the relationship breakdown, it was our love of (and regular participation in) scrag-fighting that brought the three of us back together. Rocky’s constant clashes with fellow Survivor contestant and expert witness locator Anthony Robinson endeared us to him yet again.

Given that Rocky hasn’t done anything particularly spectacular since his appearance on survivor, he had plenty of time to drop by to catch up on lost time. What else do you serve someone Rocky by name, rocky by relationship nature? Rocky Reid Road was the only possible way forward.

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Our rocky road flies in the face of tradition – white chocolate, pistachios and dried cranberry in place of the traditional peanut and cherry combination. While unconventional, it is a truly delicious mix which is also rather festive thanks to the delightful flecks of green and red.

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Rocky Reid Road
Serves: 24 small pieces

Ingredients
250g white chocolate
100g mini marshmallows
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup shelled pistachios, chopped roughly
Method
Line and grease a brownie tray.
Gently melt the white chocolate in a double boiler until just melted.
In a medium bowl, mix all dry ingredients together. Pour over melted chocolate and stir until just combined.
Spread mixture into brownie tray and refrigerate until set (2-3 hours). Cut into squares and dig in.