Almond Roca is a brand of chocolate-covered,

almond butter Almond butter is a food paste made from grinding almonds into a nut butter. Almond butter may be "crunchy" or "smooth", and is generally "stir" (susceptible to oil separation) or "no-stir" ( emulsified). Almond butter may be either raw or roas ...

crunch, hard

toffee Toffee is a confection made by caramelizing sugar or molasses (creating inverted sugar) along with butter, and occasionally flour. The mixture is heated until its temperature reaches the hard crack stage of . While being prepared, toffee ...

with a coating of ground almonds. It is similar to chocolate-covered English toffee. The candy is manufactured by the Brown & Haley Co. of

Tacoma, Washington Tacoma ( ) is the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. A port city, it is situated along Washington's Puget Sound, southwest of Seattle, northeast of the state capital, Olympia, and northwest of Mount Rainier National Pa ...

, founded in 1914 by Harry Brown and J.C. Haley.

Background

Almond Roca was invented in 1912 by Harry Brown and J. C. Haley, founders of Brown & Haley Company. The candy's name is said to have been inspired by Tacoma's head librarian,

Jacqueline Noel Jacqueline Noel (June 28, 1886 – 1964) was librarian for the city of Tacoma, Washington. She was a leader in promoting the colonial history of the United States and helped to expand Washington State's public library system. Noel is also credite ...

, who chose the Spanish word ''roca'', meaning 'rock' in English, to describe the hard, log-shaped confection. Brown owned a small

confectionery store A confectionery store (more commonly referred to as a sweet shop in the United Kingdom, a candy shop or candy store in North America, or a lolly shop in Australia and New Zealand) sells confectionery and the intended market is usually children. ...

, and Haley worked for a spice company. They met at church in 1908 and started the business together in 1914 as the Oriole Candy Company. They changed the name to Brown and Haley in 1919. Brown & Haley first used Almond Roca's trademark pink

tin Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn (from la, stannum) and atomic number 50. Tin is a silvery-coloured metal. Tin is soft enough to be cut with little force and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, t ...

can containers in 1927 to extend the product's shelf life. Individual pieces of Almond Roca candy are wrapped in gold-colored

aluminum foil Aluminium foil (or aluminum foil in North American English; often informally called tin foil) is aluminium prepared in thin metal leaves with a thickness less than ; thinner gauges down to are also commonly used. Standard household foil is typ ...

. In 2009, the Washington state legislature attempted to designate Aplets & Cotlets the "official candy of the state of Washington". The proposal ultimately failed; some legislators from Western Washington thought the designation should go to Almond Roca.

Ingredients

Almond Roca contains sugar, almonds,

butter Butter is a dairy product made from the fat and protein components of churned cream. It is a semi-solid emulsion at room temperature, consisting of approximately 80% butterfat. It is used at room temperature as a spread, melted as a condimen ...

, palm oil,

palm kernel oil Palm kernel oil is an edible plant oil derived from the kernel of the oil palm tree ''Elaeis guineensis''. It is related to other two edible oils: ''palm oil'', extracted from the fruit pulp of the oil palm, and ''coconut oil'', extracted from ...

, cocoa powder,

whey Whey is the liquid remaining after milk has been curdled and strained. It is a byproduct of the manufacturing of cheese or casein and has several commercial uses. Sweet whey is a byproduct resulting from the manufacture of rennet types of har ...

, skim milk powder, soya lecithin,

chocolate Chocolate is a food made from roasted and ground cacao seed kernels that is available as a liquid, solid, or paste, either on its own or as a flavoring agent in other foods. Cacao has been consumed in some form since at least the Olmec civ ...

, and

vanilla Vanilla is a spice derived from orchids of the genus ''Vanilla (genus), Vanilla'', primarily obtained from pods of the Mexican species, flat-leaved vanilla (''Vanilla planifolia, V. planifolia''). Pollination is required to make the p ...

. By company tradition, a small amount of the original 1923 batch of toffee is carried over into each subsequent batch of candy. Empirical studies have shown that the chocolate-and-almond coating of the candy includes the equivalent of two average-sized almonds.

Other varieties

Since 2003, Brown & Haley has expanded its line of chocolate-coated toffee, sea salt caramel, dark chocolate, cashew,

macadamia nut ''Macadamia'' is a genus of four species of trees in the flowering plant family Proteaceae. They are indigenous to Australia, native to northeastern New South Wales and central and southeastern Queensland specifically. Two species of the genus ...

, mocha (coffee-flavored), peppermint and sugar-free varieties.

References

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External links

Brown & Haley - Almond Roca page
Almond dishes Brand name confectionery Toffee Culture of Tacoma, Washington Food and drink companies based in Washington (state)