Popcorn Rocky Road (gluten-free)

Gosh rocky road is dangerous. It’s the kind of treat you make with the children in mind. Perhaps there's a birthday party coming up, or a school cake sale to contribute to. It's all for the children obviously so let's load it with sprinkles as that’s what the little monkeys like.

Don't let the sprinkles deceive you. You are underestimating this rocky road. You are wrong to think that just because it's drenched in sprinkles that this is a treat solely for the children.

This ultimate popcorn rocky road is sheer nirvana, for adults and children alike. If you are tempted to try a small square whilst you are cutting it up or arranging on the plate don’t say I didn’t warn you . These lovingly prepared treats may never make it to little Jimmy’s birthday party, let alone help raise money for new equipment for the school gym.

The best case scenario is that you don’t eat the whole batch yourself.

And if you think I’m exaggerating then let’s break it down. Do you like chocolate? Why yes, I love chocolate. Do you like marshmallows? Well, I wouldn’t say no to them toasted over a campfire. What about sweet n’ salty popcorn? Does ordering a jumbo bucket at the cinema every Saturday evening count? Yes it does. Then yes, I’m in for popcorn. Glacé cherries perhaps? They have a certain retro charm. Biscuits? Oh yes, dunked in my tea at 4pm every day. Some cashews? Naturally, they are part of my very healthy lifestyle. Now mix the lot together and Bob’s your bingo, your diet is done-zo.

I should know, I have had several batches of this rocky road come and go out of my fridge for the past two weeks and there is no saving me. What’s more, I don’t think I want to be saved. Bring on all the sprinkles.

The best bit? This is a no-bake treat, and with the right gluten-free biscuits and carefully checked ingredients, it can be made gluten-free without sacrificing that classic crunchy, chewy rocky road texture.

Ingredients Needed

Chocolate. We use a mix of dark chocolate and milk chocolate for the perfect cocoa and sweetness level. Your choice of chocolate is actually quite important as cheap chocolate just doesn’t taste as good. When I used to make this for my cake stall I would always use Callebaut’s 70% dark chocolate and their 33% milk chocolate. I don’t always keep that in now (although I happened to have some of the milk chocolate in when I made it for the photos) but I will make sure to choose the best chocolate I can afford at the supermarket. For supermarket chocolate I will often use supermarket’s own 70% dark chocolate and Lindt’s extra creamy milk chocolate.

Butter. Use unsalted butter so we can control the salt content by adding in our own. It’s used in rocky road for a lovely rich flavour but also to make the chocolate smooth and softer so we can cut the rocky road into perfect portions.

Golden syrup. Again using golden syrup softens the set so the rocky road doesn’t get too hard and brittle in the fridge. Plus it helps with the chewiness, a little sweetness and for binding everything together.

Popcorn. Our main star. We use a lot of popcorn in this recipe. It’s about the size of a large family sized bag. You can buy it in ready-made which is very easy to do these days. When I first developed this recipe many many years ago I would always make my own and I have a very handy recipe for sweet n’salty popcorn which is a much more economical choice too.

Sweet n’Salty popcorn is my flavour of choice for this popcorn but you can try different flavours if you want to mix it up. A toffee popcorn would be nice and extra crunchy (extra sweet too).

Biscuits. You want a nice crunchy biscuit. For the sake of the photos I have chosen gluten-free digestives which are very easy to buy in supermarkets (or you can make your own gluten-free digestives). However, I will often buy gluten-free Biscoff biscuits (Nairn’s Caramelised Biscuit Moments are my favourite brand) as they are very crunchy and give a great flavour. If you have found your way to this recipe and are not gluten-free then rich tea biscuits are a classic (I can’t find a gluten-free version of them sadly).

Unsalted roasted cashews. My favourite version of this recipe includes these cashews in the mix as well as they give a little extra crunch. However, I most often have to leave them out as I make this rocky road a lot for children’s parties and school fetes and obviously nuts are a no no. If you need to leave them out then just omit – you don’t need to replace with anything.

Glacé cherries. You can swap your glacé cherries for raisins or diced apricots if you like but I love the flavour of the cherries. Supermarket glacé cherries are absolutely fine to use in this recipe, but if you happen to have some leftover homemade glacé cherries then I'm not going to say no.

Mini marshmallows. Use white ones or white and pink ones. Find the smallest ones you can.

Sprinkles. Find some very jazzy colours to really make your rocky road pop. The supermarket rarely has decent sprinkles – you might have to seek them further afield like Amazon. Plus you absolutely must check your labelling as many sprinkles have hidden gluten. Of course you can omit the sprinkles if you like.

How To Make Popcorn Rocky Road

For full recipe instructions go to the recipe card at the end of this post.

Melt the chocolate with the butter and golden syrup.

Place the chopped biscuits, cashews, glacé cherries, popcorn in a large mixing bowl. Pour in the chocolate.

Mix the chocolate into the ingredients until completely covered.

Finally pour in the mini marshmallows and mix them in too.

Pour the rocky road into a lined baking tin, then scatter the sprinkles evenly over the top. Place in the fridge for at least 4 hours to set.

Remove from the fridge and cut into 16 pieces.

More No-Bake Chocolate Recipes

To say that this Gluten-Free Chocolate Tiffin is addictive is underselling quite how moreish these little bars are. A buttery biscuit base of crushed digestives is studded with glacé cherries and dried apricots then topped with salted dark chocolate. 

These quick easy No-Bake Peanut Butter Chocolate Crispy Bars are perfect to make for a crowd. They are gluten-free with simple switches to make the recipe vegan or refined sugar-free.

These No-Bake Chocolate Energy Bars are the perfect pick-me-up. Packed with dates, nuts and seeds these energy bars use only natural ingredients with no refined sugar in the chewy cereal filling, no gluten and no dairy for the ultimate salty-sweet treat.