An Arctic roll is a British

ice cream cake ''Ice Cream Cake'' is the debut Korean extended play by the South Korean girl group Red Velvet. It was released digitally on March 17, 2015, and physically on March 18 by SM Entertainment and distributed by Dreamus, marking the group's first p ...

made of vanilla

ice cream Ice cream is a frozen dessert typically made from milk or cream that has been flavoured with a sweetener, either sugar or an alternative, and a spice, such as Chocolate, cocoa or vanilla, or with fruit, such as strawberries or peaches. Food ...

wrapped in a thin layer of

sponge cake Sponge cake is a light cake made with egg whites, flour and sugar, sometimes leavened with baking powder. Some sponge cakes do not contain egg yolks, like angel food cake, but most do. Sponge cakes, leavened with beaten eggs, originated during ...

to form a roll, with a layer of raspberry flavoured sauce between the sponge and the ice cream.

History

The dessert was invented in the 1950s by Ernest Velden, an immigrant from then Czechoslovakia. He set up a factory in

Eastbourne Eastbourne () is a town and seaside resort in East Sussex, on the south coast of England, east of Brighton and south of London. It is also a non-metropolitan district, local government district with Borough status in the United Kingdom, bor ...

producing Arctic Roll in 1958, and the dessert soon became a successful product. During the 1980s, more than of Birds Eye Arctic Roll were sold each month. However, sales slumped during the 1990s and eventually the manufacturer of Arctic roll, Birds Eye, stopped producing the dessert. The 2008 economic downturn saw the reappearance of Arctic roll as consumers increasingly looked for low-cost foods. While some consumers view the Arctic Roll as

comfort food Comfort food is food that provides a nostalgic or sentimental value to someone and may be characterized by its high caloric nature associated with childhood or home cooking. The nostalgia may be specific to an individual or it may apply to a ...

, others view it as old fashioned and the food writer Nigel Slater has even described it as tasting of "frozen carpet". Nonetheless, Birds Eye reported "overwhelming consumer demand" for the dessert. Indeed, from when Birds Eye started marketing Arctic Rolls again in December 2008 until April 2009, sales of the product were estimated at £3.5 million, or 3 million boxes (around of Arctic Roll). Commentators suggest that aside from Arctic Roll's low price, many consumers buy the dessert out of feelings of

nostalgia Nostalgia is a sentimentality for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations. The word ''nostalgia'' is a neoclassical compound derived from Greek language, Greek, consisting of (''nóstos''), a Homeric word me ...

. A number of UK supermarkets sell their own brand versions of Arctic Roll, both chocolate and raspberry variants, and did so even when Birds Eye were not marketing the product.

Flavours

The original Arctic Roll features vanilla ice cream and raspberry jam; Birds Eye also produce a variant using chocolate ice cream.

References

British desserts Frozen desserts Ice cream Sponge cakes Stuffed desserts Brand name desserts {{dessert-stub