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These little chocolate bites make a nice after dinner treat, or would make a good homemade Christmas present. They will keep in the fridge in an airtight container for one week, or will freeze for up to one month.

In general I do try and keep to healthier recipes on this blog, and all I can say on defence of this one is that dark chocolate is full of antioxidants and that ginger is good for the stomach. And don’t eat them all at once!

Ingredients (makes 32 squares)
300g ginger nut biscuits, roughly crushed
140g crystallized stem ginger, finely chopped
300g plain chocolate, chopped
100g butter, diced
100g golden syrup

1 Melt the chocolate and mix
Line a 20cm x 30cm tin with baking parchment. Mix the crushed biscuits with most of the ginger, then set aside. Melt the chocolate, butter and golden syrup in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water, stirring occasionally, until glossy and smooth. Pour over the biscuit mixture and mix well.

2 Leave to set
Tip the mixture into the tin and sprinkle over the reserved ginger, then flatten the top lightly. It doesn’t need to be completely smooth. Chill for at least two hours, or overnight, then cut into squares.

Copyright BBC Easy Cook Magazine, Immediate Media Limited
Reproduced with permission

Comments
I halved the recipe as when I came to make it I realised I had only bought 150g of chocolate. So I also adjusted the tin size accordingly. No ingredients were changed however.

Verdict
These are really tasty.  They remind me of a ginger version of rocky road cake. They would work with all sorts of biscuits and dried fruit if you feel like being adventurous with your Christmas presents! They did feel like they were about to melt in my hand, so if you decide to give something like this as a present I would suggest it goes straight from your fridge to the other person’s fridge. It wasn’t terribly easy to cut, because the bit longer than the length of the knife just snapped. If you have a really long knife (30cm) it would solve the problem.

I also think these would be a great thing to make together with your children, either for yourselves or for presents.  Its very straightforward with a bit of knife work for the adult, and minimal actual cooking.  The melting of the chocolate could probably be done in the microwave to make the recipe even safer.