Rocky Road is a dessert flavor. It is made of Chocolate, Cream, Marshmallows and Toasted Almonds. They are usually sold as single serves in cups, in the Ice cream form or Fudge. This dessert flavor originated in United States of America. It has different variations in United Kingdom and Australia. The most famous version of the dessert is in the form of Ice cream.
History
1929 is remarked as the year of origin of the Rocky Road dessert. It was also noted as the year of Stock market crash in America. William Dreyer, founder of Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream Holding Inc. was the creator of this dessert. The dessert was named so to relate to the tough road in people’s lives. There is a parallel story which claim Fenton’s creamery invented this popular dessert. No one really knows which one is correct as both are located in Oakland, California and happened nearly the same time.
Ingredients and Preparation
Originally, the Rocky road only had a few ingredients – Chocolate, Cream, Mini Marshmallow and toasted Almond. There are many variations of the flavor today. Some use Marshmallow crème instead of marshmallow. In U.K., they use biscuits, cherries and raisins. In Australia, they use jelly, desiccated coconut, different nuts specially peanuts, Turkish delight (rubbery sweet from turkey), Glazed Cherries, Etc.
The oldest way of making the Rocky road bars is by tempering chocolate over a simmering water pan and adding marshmallow and the other nuts to it and quickly spreading them over a parchment paper lined tray and cooling it in the refrigerator till set.
The Rocky Road ice cream was made earlier by using Chocolate ice cream and folding in mini / chopped marshmallows along with nuts. Today the chocolate ice cream has been substituted with vanilla cream and Chocochips.
Variations
This dessert can be served as a pudding, Pizza Cookie, along with brownie, Fudge, Etc.
Health and Nutrition Facts
Rocky Road Dessert - Serving Size 80g
Calories – 160 Cal
Fat – 7g
Carbohydrate – 21g
Protein – 2g
A low calorie dessert can be made by using low calorie sweetners like splenda or stevia. Instead of using full fat Ice cream , low fat or fat free ice cream should be used.
Miscellaneous Facts
Annabelle Candy Company in U.S.A. manufactures a Rocky road Candy Bar. It is a fluffy marshmallow coated with nuts and chocolate.
Trivia
· Rocky Road is the easiest dish to prepare of using marshmallows and leftover nuts and candies.
· Currently no vegetarian product is available as Marshmallow has Gelatin. Vegetarian substitute to gelatin called carrageenan can be used instead.
· Rocky Road is one of the top 10 ice cream flavors of United States of America.