Easy Almond Roca

This will be my first recipe post that did not come directly from Facebook, but after making this treat I have had many friends ask me to share the recipe.

And yes, that is my photo with my own camera phone. I was shocked too. :)

I recently attended a Tupperware party. I grew up in a home where we owned many pieces of Tupperware, but had never been to a party. It's a cooking demonstration and it was a lot of fun! I volunteered to assist the saleswoman and we made this treat, though she said she was still working on tweaking the recipe to have less waste. (We had to pour off a lot of the butter liquid in the middle of the cooking)
This will not be an advertisement for Tupperware, but I did use their product to make this easy treat.
First, you will need almonds. They will need to be pulverized. Though sliced almonds are more expensive, they are much easier to pulverize.

Next, I placed waxed paper on a cookie sheet and spread the pulverized almonds.

 I then cubed one stick butter (to make it easier to melt) and mixed it with one cup raw sugar.

Her ratios at the party were 1/2 cup butter to 1/2 cup sugar, which did not work well. We had to drain a lot of the liquid, so I doubled the sugar and was pleased that I had hardly any excess liquid.

The tricky part is the cooking. You use the microwave rather than a stove and candy thermometer.

So, after one minute of cooking, remove the bowl and stir.
**My dear friend Bonnie is very conscious of the dangers of BPA contamination and contacted me after I'd posted this. If you are at all concerned about your dish, please try a glass bowl instead. I do not know how that will affect your cooking time, but your end result is to caramelize the sugar**

 The goal here is to carmelize the sugar and butter. When it looks like a caramel candy, soft and brown, you are finished.

Depending on your microwave, it will take an additional 2 to 4 minutes from the first time you stir. Check often! I checked at 60-90 second intervals.

Your next step is to pour and spread this liquid "caramel" over all the almonds. At the party, she used a little tupperware container that was safe to go "from freezer to microwave". Her roca was thicker than mine as it was not spread over such a large surface area.

I tried to spread this to the corners, but really didn't have enough "caramel" to go around the entire pan.

While the "caramel" is still hot, you then spread one cup chocolate chips over it so that they melt and mix as they go. At the party she used regular semi-sweet chips, but I chose to use mini-chocolate chips as they melt faster.

Again, I am not a food artist, and I use my 3.2mp camera phone for all these shots, so please forgive the soft focus that sometimes plagues my images.
Once I had sufficiently melted the chocolate, I used the wax paper to fold up the edges with extra almond bits and "threw them" onto the chocolate, mixing it in.

I then placed the cookie sheet into the freezer. Please note that this pan is fairly warm, so you do not want to place it directly onto any frozen food. I have a wire shelf in my freezer that is perfect for this purpose.

When you are satisfied with the freezing process, you may remove your roca. I was attending an evening function, so I know mine was in there for a couple hours before I removed it. You probably won't need to wait that long.

As it is nice and frozen, and I used wax paper, simply pick up the entire thing and flip it over, then begin breaking it!

 When you are satisfied with the size of your pieces, you can place it on a nice serving platter.

And, I promise that the butter flavor is what makes it the best recipe you will ever try!

Comment with your input!
~Tammy