Growing up, I spent an inordinate amount of time hoarding candy piles from various holidays. Whether it was fun-sized Snickers bars from Halloween or heart-shaped candies from Valentines, I had a stash. But there was one candy I went to great lengths to hide from my siblings for as long as possible — Cadbury Creme Eggs. The ooey gooey cream-filled chocolate juevos were not long for this world once they crossed our threshold, and I adored them above all other candies. I still do. In fact, can we all just agree Cadbury Creme Eggs are the best thing ever?
Now I know people love to hate on my favorite Easter confection, but here's why those people are wrong. Sure, eating the traditional creme egg can sometimes feel like you're getting hit in the face with a brick full of sugar, but that's part of the fun — it's meant to be overwhelming. Cadbury Creme Eggs are not holding back in the sweets department. They're leveling up. It flies in the face of convention and reason that through that amount sugar you could achieve actual flavor, but they do. And that flavor, though indistinct at best, is 100 percent Cadbury mother flipping Creme Egg, and you'd know it anywhere.
But that's not nearly all.
Cadbury eggs aren't just cream (creme) filled, either. So when I say "can we all just agree that Cadbury eggs are the best thing ever?" I'm not insisting you fall in love with the obviously, painfully superior Creme Egg. I'm presenting you with options. Oreo cream eggs, candy-coated milk or dark chocolate eggs, the new shimmer eggs, caramel eggs, white chocolate eggs — if you have a preference, they can fill it, much like the cavities that will inevitably follow.
When I was in high school, I had a particularly intrepid group vocal coach who would use Cadbury Creme Eggs in his lessons. He would buy the eggs, freeze them, and then split them in two. At our lessons, he gave each of us a half, and we would use it to learn what to do with our tongues during trills in Italian arias. (A very foreign movement to Americans.) Being the high schoolers that we were, so dedicated to learning and serious in nature, I can assure you that this in no way delved into what other oral skills teenagers may try to gain from the experience. It was all about Puccini and his butterfly, I swear it.
You see? Cadbury Creme Eggs taught me a valuable skill that helped get me and my companions through college and in life.
What other candy is so emblematic of abandoning all of your hangups and worries than the creamy sugar bomb enrobed in a thick layer of milk chocolate? The entire experience of eating it is so satisfying. The snap of the chocolate, the filling spreading across your tongue, the jolt of unrestrained energy hitting your system with the force of the Large Hadron Collider. It's as though you're hitting the "pause" button on life, just for a moment, and it lets you sink back and give over to your inner child, blissfully contented.
And let us not forget how wonderful they are to bake with. If you've never had a Creme Egg stuffed cupcake, or mini egg dotted sugar cookies, then you aren't doing the season properly. Moreover, there is a certain excitement in smashing the whole thing over a scoop of bitter coffee ice cream, or having it alongside a pint of bitter beer. Although where Cadbury eggs truly shine is when they are eaten alone on the bathroom floor, shower running, while you hide from your children who have decided that today is the day they burn it all down over a fight in Minecraft. You really need to tap into your inner child at that point.
Cadbury, take me away...
