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A super easy vegetarian lemon meringue rocky road, packed with creamy white chocolate, meringue pieces, crunchy biscuits, chewy marshmallows and swirls of zesty lemon curd.
Rocky Roads
Rocky roads were one of my absolute favourite treats to make for markets. They’re so quick and easy to whip up, the main time spent is letting it set! This lemon meringue version is sweet and summery, the sharpness of the lemon curd cuts through the sweetness of the white chocolate and meringue beautifully.
Get The Kids Involved
Rocky roads are the ideal no-bake treat to introduce kids to the world of baking. Honestly, what kid wouldn’t love smashiny up a load of biscuits and stealing the occassional marshmallow!
Ingredients & Ingredient Alternatives
- White Chocolate – Use whichever brand you prefer. I personally find the cheap Ms Molly’s from Tesco perfectly fine. Chocolate isn’t cheap so don’t go breaking the bank on a load of branded stuff if you don’t want to!
- Butter – Block butter is what you want. Margerine will be more likely to split & also won’t set as firm. I always use salted butter as it’s just what I always have in but unsalted is absolutely fine too!
- White Chocolate Spread – This can be a litle difficult to find in supermarkets. If you’re baking for a business, I always used this one from JM Posner. If you can’t find this anywhere, it’s absolutely fine to just leave it out entirely. It’s main purpose is simply to help the chocolate not set quite so firm, giving the finished treats a slightly less hard texture (makes them easier to cut neatly!)
- Marshmallows – I always used these vegan mini marshmallows in my rocky roads, or the vegan ones from M&S. This is particularly great if you sell your bakes as it makes a huge amount of rocky road treats, vegetarian. You’d be surprised how many regular customers I gained just by offering veggie rocky roads! As someone who was raised vegetarian, believe me when I say finding someone who sells veggie marshmallow treats is like finding the holy grail, and you will be a loyal customer for a very long time haha! If you aren’t too bothered, just use your favourite marshmallows. Mini work best but big ones are absolutely fine, just chop them up a little first.
- Biscuits – I used cheap, plain digestives for this recipe. If you wanted even more lemon flavour, lemon shortbread would work well too, just be mindful that the finished rocky road would be sweeter!
- Lemon Curd – I used the own brand Tesco stuff for this rocky road, but if you have a particular favourite, go for that!
- Meringue – Feel free to make your own if you like, but it’s not at all necessary. I just used Aldi own brand meringue nests. They break up into good size pieces really easy and I found they didn’t dissolve at all in the mixture. They also held up fine in the fridge & freezer!
Base
The base is made of a mixture of white chocolate, butter, white chocolate spread, plain digestive biscuits, broken meringue nests & marshmallows. The chocolate mixture can melt the marshmallows & meringue if it’s too hot, so melt it together first and leave it on the side to cool a little whilst you break up your biscuits. It’s also best to heat the mixture until about 90% melted & then stir, off the heat until the rest melts. You can carefully melt it over a pan of hot water or, my preferred method is to microwave in 30 second bursts, stirring thoroughly in between each. If you have a particularly powerful microwave, use shorter bursts to ensure you don’t overheat the mix and split it.
Once you’ve put the mixture into your lined tray, I recommend putting a piece of baking paper on top and pressing the mixture down firmly using something with a flat base. I use this fondant smoothing tool but if you don’t have one, a flat bottom glass works fine. Just press it down firm enough to get rid of all the bigger gaps, it will hold together much better when you cut it! Leave the paper on top until it’s set enough to peel it off easily.
Topping/Decoration
My lemon meringue rocky road is finished off with a generous layer of white chocolate, swirled with tar lemon curd & meringue pieces! Before you start the topping, leave the lemon curd out of the fridge for a little while. If it’s fridge cold, it’ll start to set the chocolate it touches very quickly and will be impossible to swirl in nicely. Gently press the meringue pieces in before the chocolate sets.
Leave the rocky road in the tray to decorate it, this way you can get your toppings right up to the edge without making a mess!
Lemon Meringue Rocky Road
Ingredients
Rocky Road Ingredients
- 600 g White Chocolate
- 180 g White Chocolate Spread – Optional
- 50 g Block Butter – Salted or unsalted
- 400 g Digestive Biscuits
- 150 g Marshmallows – Mini work best
- 3 Meringue Nests
- 25 ml Lemon Extract – Oil based – See notes
To Decorate
- 225 g White Chocolate
- 110 g White Chocolate Spread – Optional
- 1 Meringue Nest
- 60 g Lemon Curd
Instructions
- Line your tray with baking paper.
- Melt butter & 600g white chocolate together in a bowl. Mix thoroughly, scraping down the sides.
- Warm 180g of chocolate spread in a small bowl, in the microwave for approx. 30 seconds. Do this in 10 seconds bursts, stiring in between. Add your lemon extract to the spread & mix. Add this to the chocolate mix and stir thoroughly. Set the mix to one side to cool slightly.
- In a large bowl, break up 400g of digestive biscuits. You want a good mix of bigger and smaller pieces.
- Break up 3 meringue nests and mix with the biscuits. Not too small or they'll dissolve into the chocolate.
- Mix the marshmallows with the broken biscuits & meringue.
- Fold the chocolate mixture into the biscuits, meringue & marshmallows, making sure to coat everything really well! Nice and gentle so you don't crush the meringue pieces.
- Put this mixture into the lined baking tray.
- Flatten the mix well, be careful not to press too hard as you'll crush the meringue. Use another piece of baking paper on top of the mix and use the bottom of glass to flatten easier!
- Leave the paper on top. Put in the fridge for about 30 minutes or until the top is set enough for the paper to lift off easily. Whilst this is setting, weigh out your lemon curd & leave it out of the fridge to come to room temperature.
- Melt 225g of white chocolate in a bowl. Stir in 110g white chocolate spread, mix until completely combined.
- Pour the white chocolate mix onto your rocky road base. Put little blobs of lemon curd all over the top and use a toothpick or knife to swirl it around (the lemon curd will swirl easier if you kind of mash it up in a bowl first so it's more sauce like in consistency)
- Crumble a meringue nest (or 2!) on top. Gently press into the chocolate so it sticks.
- Set in the fridge for 2-4 hours.
- Slice & enjoy!
Notes
- I used this 23 x 23cm tray for my lemon meringue rocky road
- Best stored in the fridge (most lemon curds require refrigeration) Allow to come to room temp before eating!
- They also freeze really well, for up to 3 months. Just make sure to wrap them really tightly with baking paper and then cling film. To defrost, unwrap them completely and leave at room temperature for a few hours.
- If you struggle to get it out of the tin, carefully wiggle it out, holding onto the edges of the baking paper. You could also fold a strip of paper/foil and put it in the tin before lining it, with the edges overhanging. You could then lift it out using this as a sort of handle.
- Setting time will vary a lot depending on the size of your tray, temperature of your chocolate, temperature of your fridge etc. Normally 2-4 hours is plenty.
- Allowing the rocky road to come to room temperature will make it much easier to slice!
- If you ever have an issue with the fat separating out (usually looks like little white dots all over the bottom of the rocky road) this could be a couple of things. Make sure you don’t overheat the chocolate & butter mix when melting, and also make sure you mix really thoroughly, scraping the sides of the bowl down as you go.
- Make sure your lemon extract is oil based. If it isn’t it will sieze your chocolate! I used the Asda own brand. If you are using chocolate spread, mixing it into this before adding to the chocolate is easier.
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