Rocky road ice cream
Encyclopedia
Chocolate
Chocolate is a raw or processed food produced from the seed of the tropical Theobroma cacao tree. Cacao has been cultivated for at least three millennia in Mexico, Central and South America. Its earliest documented use is around 1100 BC...
flavor. Though there are variations on the flavor, it is traditionally composed of chocolate ice cream
Chocolate ice cream
Chocolate ice cream is a flavor of ice cream. It is the second most common flavor of ice cream, after vanilla. The flavor has been in existence for well over a hundred years, and has been popular in the United States since the late 19th century. Chocolate ice cream is made by blending in cocoa...
, nuts
Nut (fruit)
A nut is a hard-shelled fruit of some plants having an indehiscent seed. While a wide variety of dried seeds and fruits are called nuts in English, only a certain number of them are considered by biologists to be true nuts...
, and marshmallow
Marshmallow
The marshmallow is a confection that, in its modern form, typically consists of sugar, corn syrup, water, gelatin that has been softened in hot water, dextrose, vanilla flavourings, and sometimes colouring, whipped to a spongy consistency. Some marshmallow recipes call for egg whites...
s. The flavor was created in March 1929 by William Dreyer in Oakland, California
Oakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...
when he cut up walnut
Walnut
Juglans is a plant genus of the family Juglandaceae, the seeds of which are known as walnuts. They are deciduous trees, 10–40 meters tall , with pinnate leaves 200–900 millimetres long , with 5–25 leaflets; the shoots have chambered pith, a character shared with the wingnuts , but not the hickories...
s and marshmallows with his wife's sewing scissors
Scissors
Scissors are hand-operated cutting instruments. They consist of a pair of metal blades pivoted so that the sharpened edges slide against each other when the handles opposite to the pivot are closed. Scissors are used for cutting various thin materials, such as paper, cardboard, metal foil, thin...
and added them to his chocolate ice cream in a manner that reflected his partner Joseph Edy's chocolate candy creation incorporating walnuts and marshmallow pieces. Later, the walnuts would be replaced by pieces of toasted almond
Almond
The almond , is a species of tree native to the Middle East and South Asia. Almond is also the name of the edible and widely cultivated seed of this tree...
. After the Wall Street Crash of 1929
Wall Street Crash of 1929
The Wall Street Crash of 1929 , also known as the Great Crash, and the Stock Market Crash of 1929, was the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States, taking into consideration the full extent and duration of its fallout...
, the company gave the flavor its current name "to give folks something to smile about in the midst of the Great Depression." Alternatively, Fentons Creamery
Fentons Creamery
Fentons Creamery is a historic ice cream parlor and restaurant located on Piedmont Avenue in Oakland, California, USA.It opened in 1894 on the corner of 41st and Howe streets before moving to its present location in 1961, a few blocks away...
in Oakland claims that William Dreyer based his recipe on a Rocky Road-style ice cream flavor invented by his friend, Fentons' George Farren, who blended his own Rocky Road-style candy bar into ice cream; however, Dreyer substituted almonds for walnuts.
The original Rocky Road ice cream used chocolate ice cream with no chocolate chip pieces. Today, Rocky Road can be obtained based on vanilla ice cream with chocolate chips, marshmallows and almonds.
See also
- Rocky roadRocky road (dessert)Rocky Road is a type of dessert made up of milk chocolate and marshmallow which is usually served in individual portions such as a cupcake or in American cuisine, as an ice cream flavor.-Australia:...
, a dessert popular in AustraliaAustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
and the United KingdomUnited KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages... - I Love Rocky RoadI Love Rocky Road"I Love Rocky Road" is a song by "Weird Al" Yankovic about a man's obsession with rocky road ice cream. It is a parody of "I Love Rock 'n' Roll" by the band Arrows, which had recently been covered by Joan Jett.-Track listing:...
, a song by "Weird Al" Yankovic"Weird Al" YankovicAlfred Matthew "Weird Al" Yankovic is an American singer-songwriter, music producer, accordionist, actor, comedian, writer, satirist, and parodist. Yankovic is known for his humorous songs that make light of popular culture and that often parody specific songs by contemporary musical acts...