My friend Clare and I were talking today about becoming grown ups. When do you become a grown up? When you ‘wear a suit and kitten heels to the office’ as Clare put it? When you have a folder marked ‘tax’? Lots of people insist that they have never grown up – I met many a thirty-something in Thailand having a ‘gap life’.

When I was at university, my housemates and I had a student food blog. It was all about how to eat nice things on a budget. One of the most memorable recipes for me was Rocky Road, made as a result of an essay-related sugar craving. In this recipe, I opted for the definitely childish combination of marshmallows, biscuits, glace cherries and the like.

However, now I have left university and am supposed to be a full-blown adult. Therefore, I chose, maturely, to include more healthy ingredients this time. Such as pistachios, walnuts and slow-release energy oat biscuits. And I renamed the recipe ‘Chocolate Biscuit Bars’, to sound more adult. This was also a more expensive alternative, one of many economic realities to hit during adulthood, I imagine. But the result was just as yummy, and we didn’t feel so guilty when scoffing it down.

200g dark chocolate

1 tbsp honey/golden syrup/agave syrup

75g butter

50g each of pistachios, walnuts, raisins, dates, dried apricots

6 oat biscuits, broken into pieces

You will need a tin, approx. 30 by 30cm, lined with greaseproof paper

Put the chocolate, butter and honey in a heatproof bowl and suspend it over a pan on barely simmering water until the chocolate has melted. Stir in all the other ingredients. Press the mixture into the lined tin and place in the fridge to set for at least an hour. Peel off the paper and cut into squares. Easy.