Ode to the Cadbury Creme Egg: Happy Easter!

My fondest and most vivid childhood memory is from Mrs. Dalton’s 1st grade class, I was clutching a little straw basket and rummaging through the toy pile, looking under the paint brush cans and behind the curtains, hunting for chocolate Easter eggs. I’d let out a childish squeal of excitement every time I spotted a flash of shiny, pastel coloured foil paper under a rug or behind a desk. Back then, there was only one type of chocolate Easter egg, the milk chocolate egg shaped candies wrapped in shiny foil. Nowadays, the selection is abundant.
My all-time favourite Easter candy is still the classic Cadbury Creme Egg, regular sized, not those minis that have recently surfaced. Easter eggs have not always been just products of a clever marketing scheme. There is in fact a history behind eggs and bunnies at Easter. The Easter bunny has origins in Germany, where in folklore, bunnies brought presents to children much like Santa Claus. During the 18th century, German settlers brought the Easter bunny tradition to Pennsylvania, along with the tradition of Easter eggs, which were originally made of pastry and sugar. In the United States, both eggs and bunnies represent fertility and rebirth in the Spring season when Easter takes place.

I’m pretty certain it was part of a marketing campaign at Cadbury to make the Easter bunny cluck like a chicken in all the TV commercials. My favourite Easter candy has always been the Cadbury Creme Egg because it’s the combination of the best confections: smooth milk chocolate and sweet creamy centre with a simulated candy yolk, I am not sure that I can think of a greater guilty pleasure. I even crave these eggs when it’s not Easter. Something about the sharp crack of the milk chocolate egg shell upon my first bite of a Cadbury Creme Egg, it signifies that Spring is officially here and Summer is not far behind.
Cadbury Creme Eggs definitely cannot be inhaled quickly, they must be savoured. Let that cream filling ooze out and all over your fingertips, and rub it on the roof of your mouth with your chocolate coated tongue, after all, these eggs only come around once a year.

The Cadbury Creme Egg is also the most hefty of all the other chocolate Easter eggs, the cream filling really adds to its weight. The other chocolate companies have created egg versions of their chocolates to compete, but like I said, nothing really compares. One new egg is the Coffee Crisp egg, which sounds like the coffee lover’s dream right? Well, actually when the egg is unwrapped, it’s not very pretty. I also hate the packaging, I don’t know why Nestle would go to all the trouble to create an egg shaped candy only to package it in a shapeless, hard to open baggy. Also, this egg was very hard to bite. I guess the ‘crisp’ feature in this chocolate is only manageable in bar form. I nearly broke a tooth biting this egg in half. The coffee taste was evident though. In general, this is probably not a chocolate recommended for children.

The Aero egg was much softer, then again, this is a candy that is filled with air bubbles. I also liked that Nestle seemed to put more effort into making this egg pretty, when unwrapped, the Nestle logo is prominently featured (except where my thumb rubbed out the ‘t’ in the egg in the photo). This egg was soft to the bite and a little bit sweeter than the Coffee Crisp egg.

Back to the ugly eggs, the Hershey’s cookies and creme egg, although great in concept, not so great in appearance. The egg was very tasty, sweet from the white chocolate and crunchy from the bits of cookie. However, when the egg is unwrapped, it’s actually a numbly, little lopsided piece of candy. It’s not a very pretty egg.

Next up are my second favourite Easter candies, the addictive Cadbury mini eggs in a crunchy candy coated shell. Like the packaging says, these eggs really are crispy. And something about the crispy, crunchy shell mixed in with the sweet chocolate centre makes these eggs irresistible and addictive. I cannot get enough of them. They’re also gorgeous to look at, little colourful buds, freckled like tiny robin’s eggs.

Cadbury mini eggs also come with pop rocks inside. Although to get the full effect, I had to chew at least three eggs at the same time and wait until the very end until I felt a subtle popping sensation in the back of my mouth.
A copy cat of Cadbury mini eggs are Hershey’s Eggies. The name is adorable, the eggs look like a more plump version of Cadbury mini eggs without the freckles and with less colours. The Eggies’ shell is also not as crispy as the Cadbury mini eggs. The Eggies seem to have a thinner shell and the chocolate inside is sweeter than the Cadbury mini eggs’ chocolate centre.

A favourite sweet and salty treat of mine is peanut butter with chocolate. I even eat Reese Pieces breakfast cereal. So I had to buy the bag of Reese eggs when I saw them in the store. The little eggs are pretty when unwrapped, featuring the Reese’s name stamped on both sides. The actual little eggs taste exactly like a mini Reese’s Pieces cup. Which brings up a common factor of all these chocolate egg variations. The special thing about Cadbury Creme Eggs is that they only come around once a year, they look like actual eggs on the inside, and during the rest of the year, there isn’t really another candy that tastes like it. With the Coffee Crisp, Aero and Reese eggs, these chocolates may be shaped like eggs, but when I closed my eyes, it was just like eating the chocolate bar version of the candy that is available all year round. Actually, I would prefer the Coffee Crisp in bar format anyway. So in the end, nothing really compares to the Cadbury Creme Egg. Go stock up before they’re gone for the year!