Gianni's Milk Choc Ices

What is it?

Choc ice is the British name for a format that arrived from America in the early 1920s and has never quite gone away: a block of vanilla ice cream fully enclosed in chocolate, eaten from the wrapper without a stick. Losing the stick is the whole distinction. It means the chocolate has to cover every face rather than stopping where a stick enters, so a choc ice is proportionally more coating than a bar of the same volume, and it has to be held by the wrapper as it softens. The format belongs to the cinema and the corner shop more than the freezer aisle, which is a fair part of why it survives at eight to a box. Vanilla is the usual centre, though mint versions are common enough.