The Eskimo Pie Debuts 103 Years Ago Today

Did you know Russell Stover got his start with ice cream?

January 24, 1922

The Eskimo Pie is patented by Christian K. Nelson, who originally called the treat the "I-Scream Bar." Nelson teamed with Russell Stover, a former chocolate factory superintendent and savvy businessman, to bring the sweet idea to the U.S. ice cream market. But they weren’t the first to try and coat ice cream with chocolate.

The trick was the temperature of the chocolate. At some point in the process Nelson and Stover let a batch of melted chocolate cool by accident, and quickly found that it bonded with ice cream better. The perfect recipe is to heat the chocolate to 115 degrees fahrenheit, and then let it cool to 90 degrees. You can then dip in a hard block of ice cream and instead of the hot chocolate causing the ice cream to melt, the ice cream causes the chocolate to harden.

After their success with the Eskimo Pie, Russell Stover and his wife Carol went on to found the chocolate company that still bears their name today.