The First Known Recipe For Rocky Road Ice Cream Appeared In A 1920 Candy Cookbook

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.

• 1660 – Ice cream became available to the general population in France.
• 1665 – The first time a recipe was written down for ice cream.
• 1700s – Ice cream was introduced to America in the 1700s but was mostly enjoyed by those of status and wealth.
• 1851 – The first commercial ice cream plant was opened in Baltimore by Jacob Fussell.
• 1853 – Confectioners in Australia began mixing spoiled imported sweets with local nuts and chocolate, creating an early form of Rocky Road candy sold to goldfields travelers.
• 1903 – Italo Marchiony sold his homemade ice cream from a pushcart on Wall Street. He reduced his overhead caused by customers breaking or wandering off with his serving glasses by baking edible waffle cups with sloping sides and a flat bottom. He patented his idea in 1903
• 1909 – The first known recipe for Rocky Road originated not in California, but in Kansas. Several editions of Rigby’s Reliable Candy Teacher were published by W. O. and Fred Rigby beginning in 1909.
• 1920 – The 13th edition of Rigby’s Reliable Candy Teacher, copyrighted in 1920, included a recipe for “Rocky Road,” which is a little weirder than today’s version.
• 1920s – Sometime during the late 1920s, William Dreyer used inspiration from his partner Joseph Edy’s chocolate candy to make rocky road ice cream. He used his wife’s sewing scissors to chop up marshmallows and walnuts and added them to chocolate ice cream.
• 1920 – According to a Mental Floss article on Rocky Road’s origins, the earliest American recipe for Rocky Road appears in a candy cookbook published in Kansas in 1920. That version includes the rather unusual addition of honey crème whip.
• 1929 – Ice cream maker William Dreyer in Oakland uses scissors to cut marshmallows and walnuts into chocolate ice cream, adapting the Rocky Road candy into a scoopable flavor.
• 1946 – Americans celebrated the victory of WWII with ice cream. In 1946, they ate more than 20 quarts of ice cream per person.
• 1948 – U.S. food writers describe Rocky Road ice cream as chocolate ice cream with marshmallows and nuts, reflecting a stabilized, widely recognized flavor combination in American dessert culture.
• 1953 – As home freezers and supermarket ice cream expand in the United States, national brands begin packaging Rocky Road alongside vanilla and chocolate, cementing it as a classic flavor.
• 1970s – With the rise of premium “mix-in” brands, Rocky Road’s formula of marshmallows and nuts in chocolate ice cream influences a wave of chunky, texture-focused ice cream flavors.
• 1983 – Singer Weird Al Yankovic famously shared his love of Rocky Road with his parody song “I Love Rocky Road” in 1983.
• 1988 – In Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, the biggest ice cream sundae in recorded history is made.
• 2003 – Portland, Oregon, bought more ice cream per person than any other U.S. city.
• Another person who claimed to have created Rocky Road ice cream was George Fenton. He had blended a candy bar into chocolate ice cream, creating the creamy dessert.
• There are contradictory claims that the recipe came from creamery owner George Fenton. Fenton’s Creamery claims that Dreyer and Edy used Fenton’s idea and served Rocky Road at their own shop.
• It takes 12 lbs. of milk to make just one gallon of ice cream.
• The U.S. averages 48 pints of ice cream per person per year, more than any other country.
• It takes an average of 50 licks to polish off a single scoop ice cream cone.
• An average dairy cow can produce enough milk in her lifetime to make a little over 9,000 gallons of ice cream.

Sources:

National Day Calendar

Days of the Year

Foodimentary

Braums

Mental Floss

Mobile-Cuisine

National Days Today

National Today

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