National Rocky Road Ice Cream Day

June 2nd is a day made for chocolate, marshmallows, and nuts. It’s National Rocky Road Day! In the United States, the most popular way to eat Rocky Road is in ice cream.

Although there are many variations, traditionally, Rocky Road ice cream was composed of chocolate ice cream, nuts, and marshmallows. Today, there are variations with vanilla ice cream, cholate chips, and almonds.

People have been enjoying this delicious combination for many years. There are varying accounts of the origin of this ice cream, as there often are when a popular item invention comes along. Sometime during the late 1920s, William Dreyer used inspiration from his partner Joseph Edy’s chocolate candy to make rocky road ice cream. Dryer did something he was probably told a hundred times not to do. He used his wife’s sewing scissors to chop up marshmallows and walnuts and added them to chocolate ice cream. Of course, it tasted good, so he was probably forgiven for using her good sewing shears for anything but fabric!

Another who laid claim to the creation of rocky road ice cream was George Farren. He had simply blended a candy bar into chocolate ice cream creating the creamy dessert.

Soon after, the stock market crashed, and the ice cream was given the name Rocky Road to bring smiles to faces during the Great Depression.