After the success of our Kit Kat Challenge one thing became obvious: you like to make us eat things. You disgusting enablers. But far be it from us to stand in the way of your wishes! That's why this week we've decided to help you plan your Easter baskets by doing a taste test on the Springiest of confections: the chocolate Easter egg.
Don't they look delicious? After the jump, you'll get to live vicariously through our words and discover which egg won the day. It's just like being here with us! Without the medical risks from eating all so much candy in one sitting!
As you can tell from the earlier photo, Easter egg candy is like Street Fighter: a collision of different styles, a few of which always totally suck. Because of this, it didn't seem fair to us to be throwing a spherical Hershey's kiss up against, say, a mighty Cadbury Creme Egg. That's why we had a little weigh-in and split the contestants into divisions. Our lightweight division went first.
Unfortunately for us, tiny Easter eggs are made to be bitten through, not sliced. Instead of glamorous interior shots of tiny chocolate masterpieces, we got this:
… so we're gonna skip the play-by-play and just give you the final summary.
Ferrero Egg: Crunched as we sliced it! This egg was full of a yummy hazelnut creme and seemed closer to a truffle than an Easter egg. 7.4.
Butterfinger Egg: Seemed promising at first, but everyone agreed they'd rather just have a normal-sized Butterfinger instead. 6.2.
Ghiradelli Egg: Solid, quality milk chocolate. However, unwrapping the egg was difficult, and we're very harsh judges. 7.2
Hershey's Egg: Respectable and much loved, this egg would have a place in any Easter basket. But where's the flash, Hershey? Where's the A-game? 6.8.
Reese's Egg: The most-anticipated lightweight lets us down! The peanut butter was totally not up to par. A heartbreaking performance from this contender that was expected to win. 6.9.
Reese's Half Egg: As Adam put it "Is there even peanut butter in this thing?" 6.0
Dove Half Egg: Good chocolate, a nice wrapper, and an unexpected coconut filling! 7.3.
The judges took a short break to drink water and check their glucose levels, and then in was back into action with our second competition: The Cadbury Face-Off!
Anyone who's anyone knows that a Cadbury Creme Egg is one of THE most sought-after seasonal delights. Who doesn't have memories of the annual TV alert that warned us to go bother our parents? Much like the Gracies in MMA, the Cadbury family can only truly compete against itself. And here are the results.
Cadbury Caramel Egg: Good, thick Cadbury shell, and a generous amount of caramel, but far too sweet. 8.5.
Cadbury Chocolate Egg: Same shell, nice chocolate filling, and the one Jason Toon zoomed in on despite his current diet. And yet, something was just… lacking? Against lesser candy, no one would have noticed, but Cadbury holds itself to a higher standard. 8.9.
Small Cadbury Creme Egg: What is there to say? The Mary Lou Retton of Easter. And at the small size, there's no overpowering guilt for eating the entire thing. No, the scoreboard's not broken, that's a perfect 10.
It's hard to top Cadbury, but these heavyweight eggs came a long way to compete, so we're gonna give them their shot. Step up, big guys. Shed your wrappers and show us what you've got!
The brand name trio were confident enough to go first. From left to right, you're looking at a Twix egg, a Snickers egg, and a York Peppermint Egg. These three were also the easiest eggs to cut. So polite! But how did they rate by taste? Well...
The Twix was a nice balance of cookie and caramel, but was pretty much just a slightly larger Twix bar. The Snickers was pretty good, but had the feeling of something you'd find between Fudge Rounds and Mallomars on the cookie aisle. And the York Egg was basically just a standard Peppermint Patty in a slightly more oval shape. A solid 8.2 across the board for all three.
Ah, Russell Stover. The candy of drug stores everywhere. From left to right, those are the Coconut, the Raspberry Whip, and the Maple Cream. Taste reviews ran from "way too sweet" for the Raspberry, to "I felt like I just ate some beach guy's hair" for the Coconut. Overall these eggs were considered to be just way too overpowering in flavor. Maybe they'd be more tolerable in bite sized form? Better luck next year, R.S. 4.4, 3.2, 4.8.
And to close us out, an exhibition match between two World Champions: The Reese's Brothers!
Note the internal consistency between the pair. Note how their smooth filling breaks evenly and how the chocolate maintains just the perfect thickness. Maybe it was genetics or maybe it was effort, but these two powerhouses maintain the ideal for their weight class. The Cadbury Creme Egg better be happy these two aren't here for competition, because they're unbeatable. Nobody's in the same league as a Reese's Egg. It's the Ali of Easter candy.
Special thanks to our Staff Wonka, Kristy Tye, for supplying the contestants. And stick around! You never know what we'll be stupid even to taste-test next!