Marshmallows and Chocolate, Oh My!

I was feeling a bit nostalgic for Easter treats this week and decided to pull something from the Gâteau et Ganache archives: passion fruit daisy marshmallows. For years I made a spring trio of fruit marshmallows — strawberry, passion fruit, and lemon — cut into daisy shapes and finished with a button of dark chocolate in the center. They’re super-cute, easy to make, and one of my favorite treats for Easter. (Plus, they make nice gifts!)

Passion fruit marshmallows with a dark chocolate button
Passion fruit marshmallows with a dark chocolate button

Unfortunately, cutting those fun shapes leaves a lot of marshmallow “waste.” What to do with the leftover marshmallow bits — the pieces in between the daisy cutouts — not to mention the extra pound of chocolate I’d tempered? Oh sure, you could eat them, but I wanted a creative food-waste solution. And then it came to me: Rocky Road! I’ve always thought of Rocky Road as a classic American confection, but according to Wikipedia, it was created in Australia. Who knew?! (Hey, necessity is the mother of invention.) I know, Rocky Road isn’t exactly a typical Easter confection, but it does have the key elements: Chocolate and Marshmallows.

While not much in the baking and confection world can be done on the fly (one of the things I love about the sweet kitchen: precision matters, generally), Rocky Road is one treat that doesn’t really need a hard-and-fast recipe. If you’ve got tempered chocolate, marshmallows, and roasted nuts on hand, you’re good to go. By the way, tempering chocolate at home is absolutely do-able, and there are plenty of instructions out there on the internet. Need a place to start? Try food writer Aleta Watson’s Skillet Chronicles blog, in which she adapts my tempering instructions from a chocolate class I taught. (Thanks Aleta! 🙂 )

Ta-dah! My Easter Rocky Road made with 61% dark chocolate, passion fruit marshmallows, dried sour cherries, and roasted, salted almonds. The result is a treat that combines textures and flavors: soft, sweet, fruity, tart, salty, crunchy, nutty, and of course, chocolatey. Yep — all that in just a couple of bites (not to mention a solution for those marshmallow leftovers)!

Rocky Road with passion fruit marshmallows, dried sour cherries, and roasted almonds
Rocky Road with passion fruit marshmallows, dried sour cherries, and roasted almonds

That’s what I’m enjoying for Easter this year. What are your Easter indulgences or nostalgic Easter treats?

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