Easter Candy: A Tribute

We all have different religious beliefs when it comes to the spring holidays, but I hope we can agree on one basic belief: Candy is awesome!

I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to incorporate any candy into my diet this year. I hope I can put some of my bonus 49 Weight Watchers points toward jelly beans on Sunday, but I'm not sure I'll be able to.

But looking at candy is calorie-free! And I might even burn some calories typing away about my thoughts on Easter candy. Right?

So, I present my guide to Easter candies!

1. Peeps


Peeps are arguably the quintessential Easter candy. When I think of Peeps, I can't help but think of my former college roommate and current friend, Ashley, who loves Peeps more than anybody else I know.Now , when Ashley and I were roommates, I did not appreciate Peeps. (Well, actually, she was probably glad I didn't appreciate them then, because she could be certain I wouldn't steal any.) I used to be pretty grossed out by the combo of sugar and marshmallow, as well as by the weird waxy chocolate eyes. But then something happened after college that transformed my beliefs on Peeps: I started dieting off and on, and my standards for candy got lower. And it turns out, Peeps are often a good diet-friendly option for when you want a little bit of junk. (Or, I should say they are a not-as-bad diet-friendly option.) And now I love Peeps so much that I'd probably eat my own arm if it were made of marshmallow dipped in artificially-colored sugar. (In this situation I guess my fingernails would be made of the waxy chocolate.)

The fun thing about Peeps are that you can use them in all kinds of fun recipes and crafts. They're obviously good in any situation where you'd use a marshmallow, such as in hot chocolate or s'mores:

I found this as I was browsing online for candy pics. Look at the cute pink bunny tucked into her little graham cracker bed!

And also see the Peeps site for recipes like a Peeps swimming pool cake and Peeps sushi.

2. Chocolate Bunnies



Chocolate bunnies are hit-and-miss. While chocolate bunnies are always cute in an Easter basket, some of them are made of really gross chocolate. See, like this guy looks a little too waxy:


Whereas this one looks like it might be made of a good-quality dark chocolate:

And I wanted to mention that Philosophy makes a shower gel called Chocolate Bunny, which smells heavenly. Unfortunately, the Macy's at my mall only had the tester, and the clerk told me they never got a shipment of the Chocolate Bunny shower gels to sell in the store. I did find it as part of this set, which also includes Sugar Chick and Orange Jelly Bean. (They all smell awesome.)

3. Cadbury Creme Eggs

I realize some people hate these, but I love them. I have a family story about the Cadbury Creme Egg. When I was in high school, my stepdad had a package of Cadbury Creme Eggs. It must have been a few weeks after Easter, when they were no longer sold in stores, because I very badly wanted one of those eggs. I need to explain that at the time I was a straight-A student and a bit of an uptight perfectionist. So, my stepdad told me that he would give me one of the eggs if I got a "C" grade on something at school. ("C" is for Cadbury!) Not worth it.

Oh, and here's a picture of the Cadbury Creme Egg truck:

Imagine the giant blog of yellow and white goo that would come out of the center of that big egg.

P.S. I find the annual commercials about the different animals trying out to be the Cadbury bunny very annoying.

4. Various Versions of Regular Candy, Easter-ified




Pretty pastel colors, classic candies: What's not to love? My husband also believes that the Reese's egg has a better chocolate-to-peanut-butter ratio than a regular Reese's cup. And the Snicker's egg has a sports theme, so it promotes health and exercise. As in, you'll have to play a lot of sports to burn off the calories in this Snicker's egg.

5. Brach's Jelly Beans

My favorite Easter candy! Look, I can appreciate the innovation of Jelly Belly when it comes to jelly bean flavors (although they could have stopped short of Buttered Popcorn and that Harry Potter booger flavor). But sometimes I like a good, classic giant jelly bean, one where you know that the purple is grape and the red is cherry. I like to suck on the jelly bean until the outer sugary coating is gone, and then chew the gooey clear center. See, no matter what the color of the jelly bean, they're all clear in the center. Something to think about when it comes to race relations.

I'd like to conclude with a brief mention of the candy at your local fancy boxed chocolate stores. Fannie May, See's, and the like all have their own delicious chocolate eggs filled with various delicious stuff. It would be too much to mention all of them, but I'd like to say that when it comes to the caramel/marshmallow hybrid, the See's Scotchmallow way trumps the Fannie May Carmarsh, name-wise. Carmarsh makes me think of either Carmex lip balm or a car wash, neither of which sound all that appetizing. But then, it's not like "Fannie" conjures up images of deliciousness, either.

And I'm not sure writing about all this candy was the best dieting tactic after all. Now I kind of want to eat my laptop. Or, you know, go to the store to buy some actual candy. Either way.