March 09, 2017
While limited edition and seasonal foods are a dime a dozen, as we detail every week, perhaps we owe respect to one of the best to ever do it. Only produced in springtime, Cadbury’s Creme Eggs have been a must have for all Easter baskets for the past 65 years. Every year, millions of fondant-filled chocolate eggs are sold around the world. While there are variations for other holidays, such as the green-filled Halloween Screme Eggs, the majority of these sales are within a few month time period. That’s pretty spectacular for a limited time food.
Like spiced wafers and other goodies, Cadbury Eggs have become synonymous with their respective holiday, a tradition held with almost religious reverence that’s been passed down through generations. When I was a kid, the first showing of their famous “bunny audition” commercial each year signaled that Easter was approaching and that I would soon be begging my mom for a carton of these treats.
Cadbury Creme Egg Cookies.
Like many candy companies, Cadbury has created a torrent of spin-offs and variations of its most famous product, none of which have come close to the perfection of the original. There’s been the Twisted candy bar, the oddly-shaped Splat s and the various short-lived berry and citrus flavor variants.
While standard in the U.K., Cadbury has released a cookie-version of the Creme Egg for the past couple years in America, though this year is the first time I’ve seen them. It takes the famous egg-yolk creme and places it on top of a chocolate cookie before covering it all in milk chocolate. The finished product looks like a Kandy Kake from the outside.
Right from the get-go, there’s a logistical problem. As I’m sure we are all aware, the creme in the middle of a Cadbury egg can sometimes get too hard if it gets cold. Therefore, you want to heat up the egg slightly, not unlike an incubator. The trick is to get the inside goo to be runny like it’s supposed to be without melting the outside egg part. The most common way to do this is to hold it in your hand for a couple minutes or, my favorite method – put it in your front shirt pocket for a little while. The foil wrapping allows for this process, one that can really make or break the whole Cadbury Egg experience.
Cadbury Creme Egg Cookies.Having no individual wrapping, the cookie versions of the Cadbury Egg are difficult to get the temperature right. I can’t put a cookie in my front shirt pocket because the chocolate will stain it. If I hold it in my hand, it’ll melt all over. This forces you to breathe onto each cookie for about a minute before eating, all the while looking like a complete bozo in the process.
Thom Carroll/PhillyVoice
When you finally do get the inside runny enough, you come to the realization that it didn’t make a difference anyway. The chocolate cookie is substandard, feeling soft and stale and tasting even worse. No amount of creme could solve this problem. The end result leaves your fingers sticky and a fleeting taste of the egg’s greatness that leaves you wanting the original.
Verdict: Don’t even mess with this, just get a regular Cadbury Egg.
