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Today is “National Rocky Road Day”
Today is National Rocky Road Day, another in a long list of bizarre, corporate-sactioned “holidays” that, more often than not, are weak attempts at getting sales figures to spike for a day. Wow, have you ever read a more cynical introduction to a post about ice cream? Jesus, let me try to lighten up a little bit. It’s the holidays, after all.
While stock brokers were throwing themselves out of windows following the stock market crash of 1929, Dreyer’s Ice Cream co-founder William Dreyer was instead consoling himself by using his wife’s sewing scissors to cut up bits of walnut (which were later replaced with almonds) and marshmallows, and adding them to giant bowls of chocolate ice cream (and countless tears). The resulting ice cream flavor, named Rocky Road, “to give folks something to smile about in the midst of the Great Depression,” went on to become one of Dreyer’s hit flavors, and remains such to this day.
Ice cream not your thing? Consider celebrating with Nigella’s Rocky Road Crunch Bars, an energy-packed chocolate bar that you can make from ingredients you probably already have in your pantry or candy drawer:
Ingredients
4 ½oz soft unsalted butter
10 ½oz best-quality dark chocolate, broken into pieces
3 tbsp golden syrup
7 ¼oz shortbread cookies
3 ½oz mini marshmallows
2 tsp powedered sugar, to dust
Method
- Heat the butter, chocolate and golden syrup in a heavy-based saucepan over a gentle heat. Remove from the heat, scoop out about 4 ½ fl oz of the melted mixture and set aside in a bowl.
- Place the cookies into a plastic freezer bag and crush them with a rolling pin until some have turned to crumbs but there are still pieces of cookie remaining.
- Fold the cookie pieces and crumbs into the melted chocolate mixture in the saucepan, then add the marshmallows.
- Tip the mixture into a 9 in square baking pan and smooth the top with a wet spatula.
- Pour over the reserved 4½ fl oz of the melted chocolate mixture and smooth the top with a wet spatula.
- Refrigerate for about two hours or overnight.
- To serve, cut into 24 finger-sized pieces and dust with powdered sugar.
Taking a self imposed break from Nigella’s unique fusion of cooking and pornography, don’t feel like cooking today, or just not that into Rocky Road? We’ve got something for you, too. Or rather, “Weird” Al does:
