12 Days of Christmas: Christmas tree rocky road

There's a bit of a link party going on among some local blogs - a 12 Days of Christmas collaboration. I am the official day 9 candidate (I'm still waiting to get my badge in the mail but I promise I'm legit) and am hereby offering you this decadent yet easy (and pretty) gift idea: Christmas tree rocky road.

Each of the bloggers in the collaboration is sharing a Christmas related post. Yesterday's was dorothy nada with some great gift-wrapping ideas (I'm a big fan of brown paper for gift wrapping so love her inspiration) - and the full list of blogs is at the bottom of this post so you can check them all out. 

With that in mind, if you're new around here, firstly, nice to meet you! Thanks for popping by. If you want to stay in the loop you can sign up for my weekly emails (links to the week's posts plus a bonus super simple recipe) and follow me on Facebook, Pinterest and Bloglovin'.

Secondly, you should know that although I occasionally venture into the territory of things that are weirdly complex, most of the time I am focused on getting maximum deliciousness for minimum effort. This rocky road is a prime example: very easy to throw together but will have the recipients raving for months to come.

The recipe is pretty mammoth, but it will make eight generous gifts for all those wonderful people who deserve to be celebrated at this time of year. Don't let the pictures fool you; these are pretty decent wedges of chocolatey goodness, weighing in at around 250g each. If you want to scale it back you can cut the recipe in half and use a 24cm cake tin to make smaller trees - you might want to use mini M&Ms if you go that way but otherwise the method will remain unchanged.

It's also very flexible - the quantities I've given work well but if you happen to have a little more or less of a given element it's all good. And if you want to put jubes in instead of Turkish delight, or change out the nuts that's sweet too. Options galore!

I like the efficiency of making trees out of a cake; it means very little waste, just enough to trim off around the edges so that you and yours can properly taste test before you give it all away. Although you might not want to give it away once you've tasted it so perhaps that's a bit risky.

Assuming we manage to restrain ourselves from eating them ourselves, some of these will be winging their way to daycare teachers, a couple to neighbours, and the remaining couple I'll hold aside as just-in-case gifts, because there's always someone I've forgotten.

If you're not a rocky road fan (if that's a thing - is it a thing?) I have a few other edible gift options here that might tickle your fancy: 

• Tim Tam truffles - always a crowd-pleaser, and can be kept simple or made into pretty bouquets
• Lime shortbread - a zesty take on a festive classic, with sparkly sugar edges
• Salted caramel sauce - this stuff is highly addictive, so it's safer to give it away ;-) 
• Almond, orange and chocolate biscotti - very Christmassy and lasts for ages
• Cherry chocolate meringues - a big package of these would look (and taste) amazing

Will you be baking for gifts this year? What are you planning to make? And who's on your thank-you gift list?

The 12 Days of Christmas Kiwi Mummy Bloggers Collaboration

Day 1 (1st December) – Teacher by trade, Mother by nature 

Day 2 (2nd December) – Mummy Do It

Day 3 (3rd December) – Sweet Mama M

Day 4 (4th December) – Lisasaurus

Day 5 (5th December) – Girl on a Mission

Day 6 (6th December) – Misses Mac 

Day 7 (7th December) – Always Made With Love

Day 8 (8th December) – Dorothy Nada

Day 9 (9th December) – Mrs Cake

Day 10 (10th December) – Nesting in the Country

Day 11 (11th December) – Outdoorsy NZ 

Day 12 (12th December) – A Kiwi Mumma