It's an Easter Candy Face-Off

I’m sure most of you have noticed that it’s that time of year again—Easter Candy Bonanza—my favorite time of year!

Most people complain about Hallmark and how they’ve commercialized a lot of holidays such as Valentine’s Day and Christmas, which apparently detracts from the original meaning and blows the holiday way out of proportion. Well, I’m not gonna lie, I’m thankful to Hallmark for making something of a holiday that I wouldn’t think twice about anyway. Well, besides to kneel by my bed at night at pray to God that six pound baby Jesus was born in his manger and then rose from the dead. But how are we supposed to celebrate that? By passing out those creepy Body of Christ wafers with a side of grape juice?

Nope. Hallmark did us a favor and completely fabricated a holiday surrounded with Easter bunnies, chocolate, marshmallows, and other sugary-sweet confections that I can’t get enough of. And now Easter is the second top-selling candy holiday, next to Halloween. Each year, Americans spend an average of $1.9 million on Easter candy. (Halloween is an estimated $2 million a year).

I’m not one to lean toward the sweeter side of things, and I’ve never had much of a sweet tooth, but Easter candy tickles my fancy. Most of you are privy to my O-B-S-E-S-S-I-O-N with Peeps. If you’re not, then you don’t even know who I am! I wait all year for them to appear on the shelves—all lined up in their neon yellow birdie perfection. I buy a couple packages, slit the plastic open, then let them sit for a couple days till they get nice and stale. Bizarre, I know, but I’m not the only person I’ve ran across who does this. Peeps are fantastic. The Seattle Times has even started a peep contest, where one can dress up a peep and send it in to win a prize. Check out last year's entries here.


The wonderment of Easter candy doesn’t stop at Peeps and all their glory. I’m in love with Cadbury Cream Eggs, and those little Cadbury chocolate eggs with the candy shell. In fact, I ran across a blog that compared the Cadbury Mini Eggs from Canada, England and America. I found it very informative. I’ll post it here for your reading pleasure:

The Candian Mini Eggs were darker in color, smaller, were a little pointier and were a smoother egg shape.


The US eggs were larger and lumpier and were more prone to those hairline fractures in the shell.


I expected them to be very much the same, but the difference in flavor were very apparent. The Candian eggs were much better, more chocolate flavor. In fact, after a Canadian egg and US egg tasted more like a creamy sweet thing than chocolate.


Above we have US on the left, Canada in the middle and the UK to the right.

The Canadian mini eggs were by far the winner, congratulations! The chocolate was simply a superior, tasty milk chocolate. The UK eggs were second with a mild chocolate flavor, and the US still taste like, well, creamy sweet something that isn't quite chocolate. The US eggs have a meltier, gooier feel in the mouth than the UK eggs. I'm going to go so far as to say that in direct comparison the US eggs suck, they taste almost like bad white chocolate.

HURRY! We only have another couple weeks to enjoy the haven of Easter candy...

Currently Feeling: Really sad for Sarah.
Currently Anticipating: Yoga tonight.
Currently Wanting: A new iPod.