Good Humor Chocolaste Eclair

Summer is Ice Cream Novelty season. Remember all of those treats, mostly on sticks, that you used to buy at the ice cream truck when you were a kid? Well, there’s nothing stopping you from eating them as a grownup. If you’re lucky enough, that is, to live in a place where the ice cream truck hasn’t gone out of business because of high gas prices, or it hasn’t been banned because of its noise pollution or its carbon footprint or the fact that it sells stuff made with corn syrup or trans fat or whatever the evil of the day is.

Fortunately, you can buy a lot of these treats at the supermarket, too. Unfortunately, it turns out that it might not be worth the bother.

Seriously, what have they done to these Chocolate Éclair bars? The chocolate inside layer is a nasty icy texture. There isn’t enough vanilla ice cream surrounding it, ruining the interplay between chocolate and vanilla. The chocolate coating, which has the cake crumbs stuck to it – it’s barely thick enough to be chocolate-colored, much less chocolate flavored. And didn’t the cake crumbs used to be both chocolate and vanilla? And why are they so stingy with them? And the whole deal is too darn sweet.

I didn’t even finish it. I can’t remember ever in my life not finishing a serving of ice cream.

I had planned to also conduct research into the mystery of why these are called Chocolate Eclairs when they bear not even a metaphorical resemblance to the pastry of the same name, which has a non-chocolate filling and no relationship to cake crumbs. But now I’m too depressed.