Easter candy aficionados revel in the glory of the Cadbury Creme Egg every year, extolling its creaminess, verisimilitude, and flavor. Tradition is a powerful drug, but nostalgia, even more so; the commercials are iconic, and have done their job of positioning Cadbury Creme Eggs as the preferred candy of Easter, trumping other, more superior items like the Reese’s Peanut Butter Egg and those chalky-but-lovable hollow chocolate bunnies with the googly candy eyes. It is hard to watch this commercial from 1991 and not feel charmed and also, intrigued.
For me, the mystique of Easter and the bunny that brings candy and hides shit around the house ended early; once I figured out that my father was the Easter bunny, there was no need to continue with the charade. Perhaps I clamored for Cadbury Creme Eggs as a child, entranced by the displays at the grocery store and eager for something other than the Quaker Chewy peanut butter and chocolate chip granola bars we kept in the house. My childhood is but a distant memory, so I cannot say for certain if this is the case. But what I do know is that every time I’ve eaten a Cadbury Creme Egg as an adult, the experience has been nothing but a crushing disappointment.The Cadbury Creme Egg prioritizes the creme over the egg itself, when clearly, the superior flavor in this confection is not the sugar hell that is the “yolk” and “white,” but the chocolate, which is Cadbury chocolate, bitch—a chocolate experience that trumps that of American garbage chocolate like Hershey’s because of its creamy mouthfeel and superior quality. Confusing stuff, especially because Cadbury chocolate in America is actually produced by Hershey’s, and therefore should be roughly the same. But American Cadbury chocolate tastes better than Hershey’s—and it is for this reason alone that the lesser-known Cadbury Mini-Egg trumps the Cadbury Creme as the best Easter candy option available today.
Mere moments after consumption, I felt as if my eyeballs were vibrating in my head and my already-frantic typing took on a quality that veered towards reckless.
This is a pet theory that, when presented to the Jezebel staff, was met with much derision and debate. Unsurprisingly, my opinion is unpopular, but I felt it prudent to prove my theory by consuming both items in rapid succession at around 11:57 a.m. on Good Friday. Procuring the candy in question was easy, as the Duane Reade closest to my apartment has a rich selection of seasonal confections. During a routine visit for toothpaste, shampoo, and toilet paper, I also picked up a bag of the mini eggs and a single creme Egg, along with a bag of Jalapeño Ranch Ruffles, which later proved to be a necessity. I ferried my wares back to my apartment and cracked open the creamy boy, hopeful that I would somehow prove to myself that maybe I wasn’t giving the creme enough careful consideration, or maybe my palate is just stupid and wrong. Shoving off any preconceived notions, I forged ahead.
It is a miracle of modern engineering and mass production that a Cadbury Creme Egg’s interior sort of resembles that of a real egg—there is a white and there is a yolk, and both sections appear to be, I’m sorry to say, jammy. My understanding of the creme egg’s appeal is in the creme itself: a wallop of sugar that hits hard. Mere moments after consumption, I felt as if my eyeballs were vibrating in my head and my already-frantic typing took on a quality that veered towards reckless. In an attempt to quell my body’s natural response to consuming this much sugar, I availed myself of my paddock on the roof, pacing for five minutes in the brisk wind. A single Jalapeño Ranch Ruffle settled the disquiet, clearing my palate for the superior candy experience: the Cadbury Mini Egg.
The mini egg places its focus on the chocolate and not the garbage in the middle, elevating the best part of the creme egg experience and giving it its proper due. At first glance, the mini egg resembles another Easter-adjacent candy, the Jordan almond. Both have a pastel-colored candy shell and look nice in one of those little mesh bags given as party favors at baby showers. The crucial difference, though, is that a Jordan almond will break your front teeth, and a Cadbury Mini Egg will reliably deliver one to three minutes of gustatory pleasure. The mini egg is a petite sweet, a little mouthful of chocolate that can be savored in two quick bites, or, if you are disgusting, sucked on like a cough drop until it dissolves in your mouth. The chocolate is roughly the same quality and taste as the creme version, but absent the hideous, jizzy filling. Enjoyed straight out of the bag while supine on the sofa or in bed or merely on the floor, there is no better Easter treat. Nothing is as nourishing or delicious as being correct.