How Can I Stop The Rocky Road Bars From Looking Dried Out?

Our answer

Nigella's Rocky Road Crunch Bars (from NIGELLA EXPRESS) has marshmallows and rich tea biscuits encased in a base made of chocolate, butter and golden syrup. The problem will be using condensed milk instead of butter.

The fat content of sweetened condensed milk is only about 20% with the remainder being milk solids, sugar and water. Butter has a fat content of 80% with the reminder being milk solids and water. Fat is one of the ingredients that will make the bars look shinier as well as being slightly softer to eat. Using sweetened condensed milk means you will get much harder bars that will be more matte in appearance and will also likely be very sweet. Unfortunately brushing or drizzling melted chocolate on top won't particularly help the appearance as the chocolate will also take on a matte appearance, though this will be less noticeable if you use white chocolate. You could also try a dusting of cocoa, though again this will give a matte appearance. We would suggest using butter in future to improve the texture and appearance.