My Richard III Rocky Road was inspired by the fact it would have been Richard the III’s birthday today and a request from the Leicester Mercury to create a bake around this and the city’s campaign to keep his skeleton in the local area. Earlier this year Richard’s skeletal bones were discovered under a car park in the city, so I thought it fitting to drive my baking ideas down the car and rocky road route. The surface of a rocky road is also not that dissimilar to a muddy field and in this instance the battle field at Bosworth, where the war of the Roses and Richards death took place.

The main ingredients commonly found within a rocky road are broken up biscuits, marshmallows, dried fruit and on occasion nuts. On this commemorative occasion I decided to use chocolate finger biscuits to signify the 3 finger salute being used to mark Leicester’s Richard III campaign. Marshmallows act as skeletal bits of bone and salted peanuts as peanut pebbles amid the chocolate mud and soil. Chocolate Roses are thrown in to add both textural and flavour interest and play on the fact Richard died fighting in the war of the Roses. I thought it would also be fitting to scatter some pieces of spotted dick sponge into the tray bake to introduce the traditional dried fruit element into the mix with a humorous and historical angle. Whether or not Richard/Dick can be spotted in the Rocky Road all depends on where his remains have been scattered before being sliced!