# McVitie's Iced Gems Biscuits Multipack, 5 Biscuits 115g

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**Price:** £1.80 GBP

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**Canonical URL:** https://teas.co.uk/product/mcvities-iced-gems-biscuits-multipack-5-biscuits-115g/
**Source:** teas.co.uk, UK tea specialist, Tunbridge Wells, Kent

**Brand:** McVitie's
**Price:** £1.80 GBP
**GTIN:** 5000168214689
**Stock:** instock

## Summary

McVitie's Iced Gems is five sealed bags of tiny iced biscuits, 23g a bag and 115g to the box: a small plain base carrying a piped cone of hard-set icing roughly its own size. Picked into the Teas.co.uk selection as the party-table classic rather than as a tea biscuit, and we would rather say which it is.Ingredients and dietary suitability: Per the published ingredient list for this barcode it contains wheat (gluten) and milk, and it may contain soya. Check the current UK pack before purchase; formulations and allergen advice can change.Packaging: Follow the current UK pack and local-authority guidance; components can require different disposal routes. The icing leads and the base is a dry counterweight, so brew strong and leave the sugar out, or pour cold milk instead. Do not dunk them: icing dissolves on contact and ends up sweetening the tea.Curator notes: the tasting profile is our own editorial assessment against the current pack format and the brand's published description. We run same-day UK dispatch on every order placed before 2pm Monday to Friday. Common questions are answered in the detailed Q and A tab below.

## Description

McVitie's Iced Gems is five sealed bags of tiny iced biscuits, twenty-three grams a bag, one hundred and fifteen grams to the multipack. It is one of the few things in this range that is not really a tea biscuit at all, and we would rather say so at the top than build a page pretending otherwise. What an Iced Gem actually is, is a ratio. A small plain biscuit base, about the size of a fingernail, with a piped cone of hard-set icing on top that is close to the same volume as the biscuit underneath it. Almost every other biscuit in this catalogue is a biscuit with something on it. This one is roughly half icing by design, and that single fact explains the texture, the sweetness, the way it behaves in a warm room and why it is the one biscuit here that genuinely does not want to be dunked. The Taste Profile

Icing: ●●●●● (5/5) The lead and most of the product. Hard-set rather than soft, so it cracks under the tooth and then dissolves rather than melting.
Biscuit base: ●●○○○ (2/5) Deliberately plain and dry, there to carry the icing and to stop the whole thing reading as a sweet. It is a counterweight, not a flavour.
Sweetness: ●●●●● (5/5) High and immediate, because sugar dissolves on the tongue faster than a dry biscuit breaks down.
Snap: ●●●●○ (4/5) Two different snaps in one bite, the brittle crack of the icing and the drier crumble of the base a moment behind it.

Teas.co.uk Curator Rating: 4.8 / 5 - Our expert verdict from the curators at Teas.co.uk The Story Behind The Pack
Iced Gems are one of the oldest recognisable shapes in British biscuit making and have been a fixture of children's party tables for generations, which is brand heritage rather than a claim about where this box was made or what is in it. The design has barely changed, and that is because it solves a specific problem rather well: a very small biscuit with a very high proportion of icing gives a child something that is mostly sweet, in a piece too small to be a meal, in a format that can be eaten by the handful without becoming a mess.
The five sealed bags matter more here than they do on a larger biscuit, and it is a question of surface area. An Iced Gem is tiny, so the amount of exposed surface for its weight is enormous compared with a digestive or a cookie. Both components suffer for that. A dry biscuit base takes up moisture from a kitchen and loses its crumble within a day or two; hard-set icing takes up moisture too and turns tacky and dull rather than staying matt and brittle. Sealing them in twenty-three gram bags keeps four of them out of the air while the fifth is eaten, which is the practical argument for the multipack over any larger loose pack. The ingredient panel, nutrition table and allergen statement are on the current UK pack.
Packaging: Follow the current UK pack and local-authority guidance; components can require different disposal routes. Our Commitment To The Planet

The box that arrives is the current UK retail pack rather than an import made to a different recipe for another market.
Small sealed bags use more material than one large pack, and we would rather say so. On a product this small the sealing is doing real work: an opened bag of gems is stale in days, and stale gems get thrown away.
Recycling routes for the outer box and the inner bags differ by council and from each other. Read the current UK pack and check locally.
 How Does McVitie's Iced Gems Biscuits Multipack, 5 x 23g Compare to:

McVitie's 5 x Iced Gems Chocolate Flavour Multipack Biscuits, 23g: the same format with a chocolate-flavoured element. It reads richer and less purely sugary, and it suits an adult palate better than the original does.
McVitie's Iced Gems Candy Floss Flavour, 5 x 23g: the same five-bag box, pushing the sweetness further rather than balancing it. Buy it for a party table rather than for a biscuit tin.
Fox's Party Rings Biscuits, 125g: the other great British iced party biscuit, and the useful contrast. A Party Ring is a proper biscuit with a thin hard icing across one face; an Iced Gem is roughly half icing on a tiny base. The Ring is the better biscuit and the Gem is the better sweet.
 Ideal Brewing Conditions
This is a high-sugar, low-biscuit item, and that narrows the useful pairings considerably. Anything sweet alongside it compounds; anything delicate is simply overwhelmed. What works is a cup with enough tannin or enough cold fat to reset the palate between handfuls, which in practice means strong plain tea or cold milk and very little else. The Everyday Mug

Brew: A strong black tea, one bag per 200ml at a full boil, four minutes. Stronger than you would think, because sugar is the thing being cut.
Milk: A splash. Never sugar, under any circumstances.
Dunk: Do not. Icing dissolves on contact with hot liquid, so a dunk removes the entire point and sweetens the tea instead.
Count: One bag, shared or not. They are eaten by the handful by design, which is exactly why the twenty-three gram bag is the sensible unit.
 The Party Plate Route

Serve: Tipped into a shallow bowl rather than handed over in the bag, which is how they have always been eaten and how they look best.
Timing: Open them when the plate goes down, not an hour before. In a warm crowded room the icing turns tacky faster than you would expect.
For adults: Cold milk beside them. Fat and cold together suppress sweetness more effectively than a hot drink does.
Result: Five bags, and nothing left open to go soft when the party ends.
 Serving Notes For McVitie's Iced Gems Biscuits Multipack, 5 x 23g

Water temperature: Full boil, if you are having tea with them at all.
Measure: One bag per 200ml, one bag of gems per person. 
Steep: Four minutes. A weak cup does nothing against this much sugar.
Service: Milk optional, sugar absolutely not.
Dunk: No. The icing goes straight into the mug.
Iced version: Cold milk rather than iced tea. Fat suppresses sweetness better than cold water does.
Best with: A strong builders' brew, a glass of cold milk, or nothing at all, which is how most of them get eaten.
 Safety And Purity

Ingredients and dietary suitability: Per the published ingredient list for this barcode it contains wheat (gluten) and milk, and it may contain soya. Check the current UK pack before purchase; formulations and allergen advice can change.

Small size and younger children: These are small, hard pieces. Supervise younger children eating them, as you would with anything else of that size and firmness.
Count and weight: Five bags of 23g, so 115g to the box, worked out from the bag weight and bag count carried in the published pack listing.
Storage: Cool and dry, bags sealed until wanted. Both components take up moisture: the base loses its crumble and the icing turns tacky and dull rather than staying brittle.
Child safety: Keep the kettle and the hot mug out of reach of children while you brew.

## Product Questions

Is it really half icing?Close to it by volume, and that is the design rather than an accident. The base is about the size of a fingernail and the piped cone on top is near enough the same volume. Every other biscuit here is a biscuit with something on it; this one is the other way round. Can I dunk them?No. Hard-set icing dissolves the moment it meets hot liquid, so a dunk takes the entire product off the biscuit and sweetens your tea with it. This is the clearest do-not-dunk in the whole range. What do you drink with them?A strong black tea, four minutes, no sugar, or a glass of cold milk. Sugar is the thing that needs cutting, so you want tannin or cold fat. A weak or sweet drink simply compounds it. Are they a biscuit or a sweet?Honestly, closer to a sweet. The base is deliberately plain and dry so that it acts as a counterweight rather than as a flavour, and the sugar dissolves on the tongue before the biscuit has broken down. We would rather say that than sell it as a tea biscuit. How many gems are in a bag?Each bag is 23g, and the 115g total is five bags at that weight. Why do they go stale so quickly once opened?Surface area. A gem is tiny, so it has an enormous amount of exposed surface for its weight. The dry base takes up moisture and loses its crumble, and the icing takes it up too and turns tacky instead of staying matt and brittle. Best way to serve them at a party?Tipped into a shallow bowl, and opened when the plate goes down rather than an hour before. In a warm crowded room the icing softens faster than you would expect, and once it is tacky it does not come back. How do they compare with Party Rings?A Party Ring is a proper biscuit with a thin hard icing across one face; an Iced Gem is roughly half icing on a tiny base. The Ring is the better biscuit and the Gem is the better sweet. They are not really substitutes for each other. Can I use them on a cake?Yes, and it is the best non-eating use for them. Pressed into buttercream around the edge of a cake they hold their shape and colour, because the icing is hard-set rather than soft. Add them shortly before serving so they do not draw moisture from the icing underneath.

## Ingredients & Nutrition

Ingredients and allergens. Per the published ingredient list for this barcode it contains wheat (gluten) and milk, and it may contain soya. Check the current UK pack before purchase; formulations and allergen advice can change.Ingredients, as published for this barcode: sugar, flour (wheat flour, calcium, iron, niacin, thiamin), palm oil, raising agent (sodium bicarbonate), salt, milk protein, colour (anthocyanins), vegetable extracts (safflower, radish), natural flavourings, natural lemon flavouring with other natural flavourings. May also contain soya.Typical values per 100g, as publishedPer 100gEnergy400 kcalFat3gof which saturates1.3gCarbohydrate86.5gof which sugars51.3gFibre2.2gProtein4.8gSalt0.6gIngredient and nutrition data for this barcode: Open Food Facts (openfoodfacts.org), ODbL. The pack in your hands is the final word.IngredientProportionWhat it bringsHard-set icingroughly half the pieceThe lead and most of the product. It is set firm rather than soft, so it cracks under the tooth and then dissolves on the tongue rather than melting. This is where the sweetness, the colour and the character all sit.Plain biscuit basethe other halfDeliberately dry and unflavoured. Its job is to be a counterweight to the sugar and to give the piece something to crumble against; if it tasted of much, the balance of the thing would be lost.Piece sizeabout a fingernailSmall enough to be eaten by the handful, which is the format working as intended, and small enough to have a very high ratio of surface to weight, which is why an opened bag goes stale quickly.Sealed inner bags5 x 23gFour stay shut while the fifth is eaten. On a product this small that matters more than it does on a digestive, because both the base and the icing take up moisture from a kitchen.Pack: McVitie's Iced Gems Biscuits Multipack, 5 x 23g; an outer box holding five sealed bags of small iced biscuits. Best before the date printed on the pack, and best left sealed until the bag is wanted.Sourcing & blend. McVitie's Iced Gems Biscuits Multipack, 5 x 23g is made by McVitie's, one of the best-known names in British biscuit baking, and Iced Gems is among the oldest recognisable shapes in the trade, long established on children's party tables. That is brand heritage rather than a claim about where this box was made or what is in it. The pack you receive is the current UK retail pack rather than an import made to a different recipe for another market. The reading of the piece as roughly half icing by volume, with a deliberately plain base acting as a counterweight, is our own editorial assessment against the current pack format and the brand's published description.What is in McVitie's Iced Gems Biscuits Multipack, 5 x 23g, and what is not:In: five sealed bags of small iced biscuits, 23g a bag and 115g to the box, each piece a plain base under a piped cone of hard-set icing.Not really a tea biscuit: it is sugar-led and closer to a confection than to a biscuit you would keep beside a teapot. That is an editorial judgement about the format, and we would rather state it than dress the product up.Not a dunker: the icing dissolves on contact with hot liquid and ends up in the mug. This is the clearest case in the range for leaving the tea alone.

## Flavour Science

The flavour of McVitie's Iced Gems Biscuits Multipack, 5 x 23g is built in three layers, and it is one of the few products in this range where the layers are physically stacked rather than blended. Reading them in order explains the sweetness, the double snap, why the pack is sealed into small bags, and why hot liquid is the one thing you should keep it away from.The outer layer is the icing, and on this product that is not a finish but most of the item. It is set hard rather than piped soft, which changes how it behaves in the mouth entirely: a soft frosting melts, and a hard-set sugar cracks first and then dissolves. Because sugar dissolves in saliva far faster than a dry baked biscuit breaks down, the sequence of a single gem is fixed no matter how you eat it. Sweetness arrives first and arrives fast, reaching full intensity before the base has begun to give way. There is very little aroma involved: what you get on opening a bag is faint and mostly sugar, because there is no fat-carried aromatic layer of the kind a chocolate coating or a buttery dough provides. That is worth knowing because it means smell tells you nothing useful about freshness here, where sight does: dull or tacky icing is the reliable sign that a bag has been open too long.The flavour spike is that first dissolve, and its defining quality is how brief it is. A gem gives you a short, high, clean burst of sweetness and then stops, which is exactly why they are eaten by the handful rather than one at a time and why a 23g bag is the right unit for the format. There is no depth behind the sugar to slow you down and no fat to coat the palate, so the mouth is reset almost immediately and ready for the next one. This is also why the product is relentless in quantity in a way a richer biscuit is not: nothing about it tires the palate, so the only thing regulating how many you eat is the size of the bag.The base structure is the small plain biscuit underneath, and it is the quietest component in this entire catalogue on purpose. It is dry, close-textured and near enough unflavoured, and it exists to do two jobs: to hold the icing up during piping and setting, and to give the bite something to crumble against so the piece does not read as a pure sweet. The finish belongs to it. Once the sugar has gone, what is left is a brief dry biscuit note that clears quickly and leaves nothing coating the mouth. The two snaps in a single bite, brittle icing then drier crumble, are the whole textural interest of the product, and they are also the first thing lost when a bag has been open a day too long.Getting it right in the cup. If you are having tea with these, brew a strong black tea, one bag per 200ml at a full boil for four minutes, with a splash of milk and no sugar at all. The cup is there to cut sweetness, so tannin is the active ingredient and a weak or a sweetened brew accomplishes nothing. A glass of cold milk does the job better than any hot drink, because fat and cold both suppress the perception of sweetness, which is why milk has always been the standard partner for this kind of party food. Do not dunk under any circumstances: hard-set icing dissolves on contact with hot liquid, so the dunk removes the entire product from the biscuit and puts it in the tea. One bag per person, tipped into a bowl rather than eaten out of the packet, and opened when you want them rather than in advance.How water and temperature change it. Moisture is the enemy of both layers at once, which is unusual and is the reason for the small sealed bags. A gem has an enormous amount of exposed surface for its weight, far more than a digestive or a cookie, so it exchanges moisture with the air in a kitchen quickly. The dry base takes water up and loses its crumble within a day or two of opening. The icing takes it up as well and turns from matt and brittle to tacky and dull, and once it has gone tacky it does not come back however carefully you reseal the bag. Warmth accelerates all of that, which is why a warm crowded room is the worst place to leave an open bowl of them and why you should put them out when the plate goes down rather than an hour early. There is no coating to melt and no fat to bloom, so heat on its own does no damage in transit; humidity does. Store the box somewhere cool and dry, bags sealed, and well away from the shelf above the kettle. On the drink side, hard water flattens a strong black tea and costs you the tannin that is doing the cutting, so add thirty seconds to the steep rather than sugar to the cup.

## Recipe Ideas

McVitie's Iced Gems Biscuits Multipack, 5 x 23g is a party format rather than a biscuit-tin one: five sealed bags, eaten by the handful, opened when you want them. Five builds below cover the strong mug that actually stands up to them, the cold milk serve, the party bowl, a cake edge that uses the hard-set icing properly, and the storage note that keeps the last bag as good as the first.
Recipes, born here first
 The Strong Mug How to make The Strong Mug with McVitie's Iced Gems. 5 min 1 serving Easy You'll need 1 bag strong black tea 200ml water at a full boil 1 sealed 23g bag of gems A splash of milk Method Brew one bag in 200ml straight off the boil for four minutes. Stronger than you think; sugar is what needs cutting. Leave the sugar out of the cup entirely. Sweet against sweet does nothing at all. Tip the bag into a bowl rather than eating from the packet, which is how they are meant to go. Do not dunk. Icing dissolves on contact and ends up sweetening the tea. 
 The Cold Milk Serve How to make The Cold Milk Serve with McVitie's Iced Gems. 2 min 1 serving Easy You'll need 1 tall glass of cold milk 1 sealed 23g bag of gems Method Pour the milk straight from the fridge, which is the pairing this kind of party food has always had. Eat a few dry first and notice how fast the sweetness peaks and then stops. Drink between handfuls. Fat and cold together suppress sweetness more effectively than any hot drink does. Finish the bag. There is no reseal on it and an opened bag is dull by tomorrow. What you'll end up with: The version that actually tastes balanced, and the reason milk is the traditional partner for a party plate. 
 The Party Bowl How to make The Party Bowl with McVitie's Iced Gems. 2 min 5 bags Easy You'll need Up to 5 bags of gems A wide shallow bowl Opened at the last minute Method Wait until the plate goes down before you open anything. In a warm crowded room the icing turns tacky within the hour. Tip into a wide shallow bowl rather than a deep one, so the gems are not crushing each other. Open one bag at a time and keep the rest sealed in the box, which is the whole reason the format is portioned. Put a jug of cold milk beside it if there are adults in the room. What you'll end up with: A table that looks right and gems that still crack rather than bend, with nothing left open at the end. 
 A Gem Edge On A Cake How to make A Gem Edge On A Cake with McVitie's Iced Gems. 10 min 1 cake Easy You'll need 1 bag of gems 1 iced or buttercream-topped cake A palette knife Method Finish the cake first and have the buttercream soft but not wet. Press the gems in around the top edge, base first, so the icing cone stays proud and keeps its colour. Add them shortly before serving. Left overnight they draw moisture out of the icing underneath and go tacky. Keep the cake somewhere cool and dry rather than in the fridge, where condensation will do the same thing faster. 
 Keeping The Last Bag Good How to make Keeping The Last Bag Good with McVitie's Iced Gems. 1 min 1 box Easy You'll need The unopened bags A cool dry cupboard Not the shelf above the kettle Method Leave them sealed. There is nothing you can do to an opened bag that beats simply not opening it yet. Store cool and dry. Humidity is the enemy here, not heat; there is no coating to melt. Watch for dull or tacky icing rather than smelling for staleness. Sight is the reliable test on this product. Finish any bag you open the same day, because a gem has far more exposed surface for its weight than a full-size biscuit. What you'll end up with: A fifth bag that snaps exactly like the first, which is the only thing the sealed format is really for.

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