Rocky Road Candy Bar

After the horror that was my Fizzl'd Fruits Skittles experiment, you can only imagine the relish with which I launched into my Rocky Road candy bar.  I could barely stand to photograph it before nomming it.  It's a miracle that picture doesn't have a big sloppy bite mark in the side, Jaws-style!

I didn't even realize that rocky road was a thing until last Christmas, when I ran across a recipe.  All this time I thought it was just a delicious candy bar!  If you want, you can make a pretty decent pan of rocky road by melting up mini marshmallows, chocolate chips, and peanuts.  I will say this: if you like your guests, you will refrigerate the pan, cut up the candy, and plate it fast before it starts to get sticky.  Homemade rocky road is incredibly sticky, and quite indelicate to eat.  Delicious, but indelicate.

Why not stick with the candy bar, instead?  Honestly in almost every respect, it's superior to the homemade version.  For one thing, the marshmallow is safely contained as filling, instead of jumbled all over the place.  This makes it far easier to eat.

For another thing, this flagship of the Annabelle Candy Company line features cashews instead of boring old peanuts.  And they're chopped small enough to provide some nice texture, without being overwhelming or obtrusive.  Just like the tiny flecks of almond in their U-No bar, actually.  They must have a giant machine whose sole purpose is to chop nuts to the same tiny size.

The marshmallow is tender, almost creamy.  It has a good solidity to it, whereas marshmallow filling is often too gooey or foamy.  In fact, it most closely resembles… a marshmallow.  Imagine that!  But the only other marshmallow candy I can think to compare it to is Peeps and Snowballs, neither of which are the least bit like a marshmallow.

The chocolate is lumpy and bumpy on the outside.  It has character!  But it's not sticky or melty, unlike "real" rocky road.  There is also a very rare Rocky Road bar made with dark chocolate, which has a gold wrapper.  These are almost impossible to find in the wild, although I spotted some at a Rite Aid over the weekend.  

I don't have a picture of this rare dark chocolate Rocky Road bar, because that time I couldn't resist, and snarfed the whole thing before I got home.  Mea culpa.  Suffice it to say, it's really tasty.  And its relative rarity makes it a very exciting find, for those of us who get excited about such things.  (Which is to say, fat girls.)

I've talked about the Annabelle Candy Company before.  Mass market candy is a particularly corporatized, sanitized, globalized market segment.  It's great to find unusual candy by small, family-owned manufacturers who are still holding out against the big guys.  So in addition to the sugar rush and the deliciousness, you get that golden smug feeling that comes from supporting the good cause with your hard-earned dollars!