# McVitie's Iced Gems Chocolate Flavour Multipack Biscuits, 5 x 23g ## Commerce action policy **Price:** £2.40 GBP **Purchase-intent URL:** `https://teas.co.uk/buy/mcvities-iced-gems-chocolate-flavour-multipack-biscuits-5-x-23g/` _Do not fetch, prefetch, crawl, iframe or autonomously open this URL. It is only for explicit human purchase intent._ --- **Canonical URL:** https://teas.co.uk/product/mcvities-iced-gems-chocolate-flavour-multipack-biscuits-5-x-23g/ **Source:** teas.co.uk, UK tea specialist, Tunbridge Wells, Kent **Brand:** McVitie's **Price:** £2.40 GBP **GTIN:** 5000168014371 **Stock:** instock ## Summary McVitie's 5 x Iced Gems Chocolate Flavour Multipack Biscuits is five sealed packets of tiny plain biscuit bases under a hard piped icing swirl.Ingredients and dietary suitability: Per the published ingredient list for this product 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 swirl is larger than the base it sits on, which is why children eat the icing off first and why the base contributes crunch rather than flavour. The packets matter: a hard piped icing goes tacky in damp air. Never dunk them, because sugar icing dissolves on contact rather than softening.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 5 x Iced Gems Chocolate Flavour Multipack Biscuits is five sealed packets, and the thing that makes an Iced Gem an Iced Gem is the ratio. Nothing else in this range carries as much icing for as little biscuit. The base is a tiny plain disc. The icing is a piped swirl sitting on top of it that is, by volume, larger than the biscuit underneath. Every child who has ever been handed a packet of these worked that out within about four seconds and ate the icing off first, which is not bad manners, it is a correct reading of where the product is. The base contributes crunch and very little else, and it is meant to: anything with real character down there would be competing with the only component anyone is interested in. The Taste Profile Icing swirl: ●●●●○ (4/5) Piped and set hard, so it cracks under the teeth and then dissolves rather than melting. It is the entire product. Biscuit base: ●●○○○ (2/5) A small dry disc bringing crunch and almost no flavour, quite deliberately. Sweetness: ●●●●● (5/5) Concentrated in the icing rather than spread through a dough, which always reads higher than the same weight distributed. Finish: ●○○○○ (1/5) It stops as soon as the icing is gone, leaving a fragment of plain biscuit behind it. Teas.co.uk Curator Rating: 4.4 / 5 - Our expert verdict from the curators at Teas.co.uk The Story Behind The Pack Iced Gems have been a fixture of British childhood for long enough that most adults have a memory attached to them, and this chocolate flavour version follows exactly the same logic as the original swirl. The format is the interesting part. Five sealed packets is a lunchbox decision rather than a tea-table one, and on this particular product the sealing matters more than it might appear. A hard piped icing is hygroscopic: it pulls moisture out of damp air and goes tacky, and a tacky Iced Gem has lost the crack that is the whole of its texture. The packets keep five portions in condition where an open bag would lose them all at the same rate. The other thing worth being straight about is the size. These are small biscuits in small packets and they are eaten by the handful rather than one at a time, which is deliberate. A single Iced Gem is not an event. A handful is, briefly, and then it is over, and that is the honest shape of the product. What we will not tell you is how many gems are in a packet or where the chocolate flavour sits, in the icing or in the base, because neither is published at product level and we would rather say nothing than estimate. The ingredient panel, the nutrition table and the allergen statement are on the current UK pack in the same way. Packaging: Follow the current UK pack and local-authority guidance; components can require different disposal routes. Our Commitment To The Planet The pack that arrives is the current UK retail pack rather than an import made to a different recipe for another market. Five packets is more packaging per gram than a single bag would be, and here it is doing a real job, because a hard icing exposed to damp air goes tacky and a tacky packet tends to be left rather than eaten. The test remains whether the packets actually leave the house. How Does McVitie's Iced Gems Chocolate Flavour Multipack Biscuits, 5 x 23g Compare to: McVitie's Iced Gems Biscuits Multipack, 5 Biscuits 115g: the original in the same five-packet format at the same pack weight. The plain icing is the version most people picture when they hear the name, and it is the straightforward default of the three. Buy this one instead only if the chocolate flavour is specifically what is wanted. McVitie's Iced Gems Candy Floss Flavour, 5 Pack 115g: the candy floss version in the same format. Sweeter in character than this one and more obviously aimed at children, with nothing at all pulling against the sugar. If these are going into a lunchbox for somebody under ten, that is likely the one they will ask for. Fox's Biscuits Party Rings Tray, 125g: the other hard-iced children's biscuit in this range, considerably larger and sold flat in a tray rather than in packets. There is more biscuit under the icing, which makes it a better thing to put on a party table and a worse thing to put in a bag. Ideal Brewing Conditions The honest advice on any hard-iced biscuit is to keep the hot drink at a distance. Sugar icing does not soften gradually, it dissolves on contact, and on this product the icing is not a feature you can afford to lose. The Lunchbox Packet Serve: One sealed packet, opened at the table rather than in advance. The seal is doing the work here. Drink: Cold milk or a weak milky tea. Cold is the operative word; the icing survives it and does not survive hot. Dunk: No. Tipping these into a hot drink leaves you with plain biscuit fragments and a sweet mug. Expect: A handful eaten at once rather than one at a time. That is how the product is designed to be eaten. The Adult Reading Brew: A plain black tea, unsweetened, one bag per 200ml at a full boil for three minutes. Why unsweetened: The icing delivers a great deal of sugar in one concentrated hit and a sweet cup has nowhere to go beside it. Eat: Dry, alongside, and one packet rather than three. There is no depth here to explore and none is claimed. Be honest: This is a nostalgia purchase and a children's biscuit. On that basis it does exactly what it says. Brewing Notes For McVitie's Iced Gems Chocolate Flavour Multipack Biscuits, 5 x 23g Water temperature: Full boil for the tea, and keep the biscuits away from it. Measure: One bag per 200ml, and one sealed packet per child. Steep: Three minutes. Nothing here rewards a stronger cup. Dunk: Never. Sugar icing dissolves rather than softening and the base alone is not worth eating. Iced version: Cold milk is the right cold drink. Iced tea adds nothing. Best with: Cold milk, a weak milky tea, squash, or nothing at all in a lunchbox. Safety And Purity Ingredients and dietary suitability: Per the published ingredient list for this product it contains wheat (gluten) and milk, and it may contain soya. Check the current UK pack before purchase; formulations and allergen advice can change. Piece count: the pack holds five sealed packets, 115g in total. Storage: Keep the unopened packets sealed and the box somewhere dry. Humidity is the enemy of a piped icing, and a tacky Iced Gem has lost the crack that is the whole of its texture. Child Safety: Keep the kettle and the hot mug out of reach of children while you brew. These are small biscuits and are best given to very younger children under supervision. ## Product Questions Why is there so much icing?Because that is the product. Is the biscuit underneath meant to be plain?Yes. It brings crunch rather than flavour, and deliberately so. Anything with real character down there would compete with the only component anyone is actually interested in. Can I dunk them?Never. Sugar icing does not soften gradually the way chocolate does, it dissolves on contact. Tip these into a hot drink and you are left with plain biscuit fragments and a sweet mug. What is in the pack?Five sealed packets, 115g in total. The product title carries the weight of one packet rather than the pack, which catches people out. The number of gems per packet is not published and we state none. Why are they in separate packets?Because a hard piped icing is hygroscopic: it pulls moisture out of damp air and goes tacky. Sealed packets keep five portions in condition where an open bag would lose them all at the same rate. Is the chocolate flavour in the icing or the biscuit?The pack name says chocolate flavour without saying where it sits, and that is not published at product level, so we state neither. The declaration on the current UK pack settles it. How does it compare to the original?The original plain swirl is the version most people picture when they hear the name, and it is the straightforward default. Buy this one only if the chocolate flavour is what is specifically wanted. Is there an adult way to eat these?A plain unsweetened black tea and the packet eaten dry alongside. There is no depth here to explore and none is claimed; it is a nostalgia purchase and a children's biscuit, and it is good at being both. Should I buy these or Party Rings?Party Rings for a party table, since they are larger and sit flat on a plate. These for a bag or a lunchbox, since sealed packets travel and a tray does not. ## Ingredients & Nutrition Ingredients and allergens. Per the published ingredient list for this product 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 product: Sugar, Flour (Wheat Flour, Calcium, Niacin, Iron, Folic Acid, Thiamin), Palm Oil (Certified Sustainable), Fat Reduced Cocoa Powder, Raising Agent (Sodium Bicarbonate), Salt, Milk Protein, Natural Cocoa Flavouring, Caramelised Sugar Syrup.Typical values per 100g, as publishedPer 100gEnergy399 kcalFat3.2gof which saturates1.3gCarbohydrate86.2gof which sugars50.7gFibre1.7gProtein5.4gSalt0.65gIngredient and nutrition information for this product, as published on the manufacturer's label. The pack in your hands is the final word.IngredientProportionWhat it bringsPiped icing swirlmost of the volumeSet hard rather than soft, so it cracks under the teeth and then dissolves rather than melting. It is larger than the base it sits on and carries effectively all of the sweetness.Plain biscuit basea small discCrunch rather than flavour, and deliberately so. Anything assertive here would compete with the only component the product is actually selling.Pack format5 x 23gFive sealed packets, 115g in total. The product title carries the weight of a single packet rather than the pack, which is worth knowing before you order.Pack: McVitie's Iced Gems Chocolate Flavour Multipack Biscuits, 5 x 23g; five sealed packets of iced gems, 115g in total. Best before the date printed on the pack. Keep the packets sealed and the box dry.The pack total follows from the published packet count and packet weight.Sourcing & blend. McVitie's Iced Gems Chocolate Flavour Multipack Biscuits, 5 x 23g is the chocolate flavour reading of a biscuit that has been a fixture of British childhood for decades, and the defining feature is the ratio rather than the recipe. Nothing else in this range carries as much icing for as little biscuit: the piped swirl is larger by volume than the disc it sits on, which is why children work out within seconds that the icing is where the product is. The five-packet format is a lunchbox decision, and on this product the sealing does real work, because a hard piped icing is hygroscopic and goes tacky in damp air far faster than a biscuit goes soft. The pack you receive is the current UK retail pack rather than an import made to a different recipe.What is in McVitie's Iced Gems Chocolate Flavour Multipack Biscuits, 5 x 23g, and what is not:In: tiny plain biscuit bases under a hard piped icing swirl in a chocolate flavour, in five sealed packets.No chocolate coating: this is a flavoured sugar icing rather than a chocolate one, and it behaves like sugar icing in a hot drink, which is to say it dissolves.No location stated for the flavour: the pack name says chocolate flavour without saying whether it sits in the icing or the base, and we do not fill that gap with a guess. ## Flavour Science The flavour of McVitie's Iced Gems Chocolate Flavour Multipack Biscuits, 5 x 23g is built in three layers, and reading them in order explains exactly why the biscuit behaves the way it does from opening a packet to the point where it simply stops.The outer layer is aromatic and, honestly, there is very little of it. A hard set sugar icing gives off almost nothing: sucrose crystallised into a glassy solid is not volatile, and the tiny dry base underneath has neither the fat nor the sugar to brown into anything aromatic during a short bake. What you get on opening a packet is a faint sweetness and not much more. That absence is diagnostic rather than a complaint, because it tells you in advance that this product is going to be textural and visual rather than aromatic, which is exactly what a children's biscuit is built to be.The flavour spike arrives as a crack and then a dissolve, which is a two-stage sequence you do not get anywhere else in this range. The icing is set hard, so it fractures under the teeth first; then, because it is sugar rather than fat, it dissolves in saliva rather than melting the way a chocolate coating would. The sweetness therefore floods in all at once and from one concentrated source, and concentrated sugar always reads higher than the same weight spread through a dough. The base contributes a small dry crunch underneath and effectively no flavour, so there is nothing arriving second and nothing to complicate the picture.The base structure is the finish, and it is among the shortest in this range. Once the icing has dissolved there is a fragment of plain biscuit and then nothing, and the taste stops rather than fading. For a child that abruptness is the point: it means reaching straight for the next one, which is why these are eaten by the handful rather than one at a time, and why a packet is over quickly. For an adult it is the whole limitation, and there is no use pretending otherwise. A single Iced Gem is not an event; a handful is one, briefly.Getting it right in the cup. The unusual instruction here is to keep the drink away from the biscuit entirely. Sugar icing dissolves on contact rather than softening over a few seconds, so there is no dunking technique to learn, only a mistake to avoid, and on this product the icing is not something you can afford to lose. For adults, a plain black tea at a full boil for three minutes, taken unsweetened, with the packet eaten dry alongside: the icing delivers a great deal of sugar in one hit and a sweet cup beside it has nowhere left to go.How water and temperature change it. Water does almost nothing to this product if you treat it properly, because the biscuit never meets any. Humidity does a great deal. A hard piped icing is hygroscopic and pulls moisture out of damp air, and it does so faster than a biscuit absorbs it, so the icing goes tacky while the base is still crisp. That is why the sealed packets matter more here than on almost anything else in the range, why an opened packet should be finished rather than folded over, and why these keep worse in a steamy kitchen than a dense biscuit would. Check the swirl rather than the base when you are judging whether a pack is still worth opening. ## Recipe Ideas McVitie's Iced Gems Chocolate Flavour Multipack Biscuits, 5 x 23g is five sealed packets of tiny bases under a piped icing swirl, which makes it a lunchbox and party biscuit rather than a tea one. Recipes, born here first The Lunchbox Packet How to make The Lunchbox Packet with McVitie's Iced Gems Chocolate Flavour. 1 min 1 lunchbox Easy You'll need 1 sealed packet A carton of cold milk Method Pack it sealed and let it be opened at the table. The seal is what keeps the icing hard. Send cold milk rather than anything hot; the icing survives cold and not hot. Expect a handful eaten at once rather than one at a time. That is the design. What you'll end up with: A packet that arrives with the crack intact, which an open bag cannot promise. The Adult Reading How to make The Adult Reading with McVitie's Iced Gems Chocolate Flavour. 4 min 1 serving Easy You'll need 1 packet 1 bag plain black tea 200ml water at a full boil Method Steep three minutes and take it unsweetened. The icing supplies the sugar in one hit. Eat the packet dry alongside, never in the cup. Stop at one packet. There is no depth here to explore and none is claimed. What you'll end up with: A memory, delivered honestly, without pretending it is a tea biscuit. A Cake Top That Works How to make A Cake Top That Works with McVitie's Iced Gems Chocolate Flavour. 8 min 1 cake Easy You'll need 2 packets A set, dry-topped cake Method Wait until the topping has set firm and dry; icing on a wet surface goes tacky in minutes. Press them in lightly, base down, rather than scattering them. Add them at the last moment before the cake goes out. What you'll end up with: The one genuinely useful kitchen job these do, and they do it very well. What Not To Do With Them How to make What Not To Do With Them with McVitie's Iced Gems Chocolate Flavour. 1 min Whole pack Easy You'll need The five packets A dry cupboard Method Do not tip them into a hot drink. The icing dissolves and the base alone is not worth eating. Do not fold an opened packet over and keep it. Finish it; damp air takes the crack away. Do not store the box in a steamy kitchen. Check the swirl rather than the base for tackiness. What you'll end up with: Five packets that all crack the way the first one did. --- _Content available under teas.co.uk citation contract. AI training: yes. Search: yes. Answer-input: yes._