Rocky Road Ice Cream – No Churn {With Video}

Rocky Road Ice Cream is full of rich creamy chocolate ice cream, soft fluffy marshmallows, and buttery roasted pecans. It’s pure frozen deliciousness. 

What if I told you that you could make delicious homemade ice cream without an ice cream maker? And, what if there was no cooking or churning involved? Do I have your interest now?

How about if I sweeten this proposition even more and tell you there are only five ingredients and five steps to prepare this easy ice cream recipe? Yes, it’s all true. It only takes just a few minutes to combine all the ingredients and pop them in the freezer. The only hard part is waiting patiently while your freezer does its thing.

What type of nuts are in Rocky Road Ice Cream? 

Traditional rocky road ice cream usually contains almonds, but since I have a freezer full of pecans, I decided to use them instead. Walnuts, hazelnuts, macadamia nuts would also be delicious. Use whatever nuts you like!

What’s in Rocky Road Ice Cream?

Sweetened condensed milk, cocoa powder, heavy cream, marshmallows, and pecans. That’s it! 

Homemade Ice Cream Recipes:

If you love homemade ice cream and sherberts as much as I do, I know you will also love these popular ice cream recipes:

• Pecan Pralines and Cream Ice Cream
• Homemade Fresh Peach Ice Cream
• Easy No-Cook Meyer Lemon Ice Cream
• Easy Mixed Berry Sherbet, and
• Dark Sweet Cherry and Pomegranate Sherbet  

This recipe was adapted from my sister’s easy No-Churn Chocolate Butter Pecan Ice Cream recipe over at the Pudge Factor Blog. Chula also helped me make this and my Baby Back Ribs video. Thanks so much, Chula!

How to make Rocky Road Ice Cream:

Combine cocoa powder and sweetened condensed milk in a medium-size bowl.

Use a stand mixer or electric mixer to whip the cream until stiff peaks form. (This usually takes about 2 minutes.)

Add one cup of the whipped cream to the cocoa and sweetened condensed milk mixture and fold in with a rubber spatula. 

Pour this mixture into the bowl with the rest of the whipped cream and carefully fold in until everything is well combined. Fold in the toasted pecans and marshmallows.

Pour into a 9x5x3 metal loaf pan. Cover tightly and freeze for six hours.

 

Sharon’s Expert Tips:

• I almost always use toasted or roasted pecans in my recipes. You can always use nuts that haven’t been roasted, but I think the toasted ones taste much better. Check out my easy recipe for toasting pecans here.
• You can easily vary this recipe by omitting the marshmallows and/or nuts and adding crushed Oreos, M&Ms, or other cookies or candy. You could also omit the cocoa powder and add fresh fruit. 
• I like to take my ice cream out of the freezer about 10 minutes before I plan to serve it in order to make it easier to scoop out. 
• I used 100% Cacao Special Dark cocoa powder in this recipe and it was very chocolatey! Regular cocoa powder works too as well as Dutch processed cocoa powder.