Although everyone has their own favorite Easter candy, I doubt that anyone will debate the supremacy of Cadbury Mini Eggs.  With their distinctive dark blue packaging, chalky candy coating, and delicious chocolate, the Cadbury Mini Eggs are one of the best candies available for Easter.  They far surpass such kitschy and guilty pleasures as Cadbury Crème Eggs, marshmallow Peeps, and candy corn.

You always have to specify the "mini" in Cadbury Mini Eggs, lest people confuse them with Cadbury Crème Eggs.  I think we can all spot a Cadbury Crème Egg at 50 paces, whether out of delight or loathing.  And it seems like every year there is a new kind of Crème Egg.  But no, today we are taking a closer look at Cadbury Mini Eggs.

Many regular candies are packaged in special Easter colors, but Cadbury Mini Eggs are one of the few which appear only at Easter.  Maybe that is for the best.  Maybe if Mini Eggs were available all year round, they wouldn't seem so delicious or special.  Honestly though, I kind of doubt it.  How else to explain the number of people who buy Mini Eggs in mass quantities at Easter, and hoard them in a cool place, to eat all year round?  Much less how to explain my jealousy of the space and financial resources of those Mini Egg hoarders?

There is no other Easter candy even remotely similar to Cadbury Mini Eggs.  First we have the chalky matte candy shell.  Why chalky and matte?  I cannot say, but it certainly lends to the appeal.  This is no glossy, plastic-y, brightly colored children's candy.  It's sophisticated, for adults!  The chalky coating lends the Easter colors a Martha Stewart sort of vibe.  Which is refreshing, considering the lurid colors on display elsewhere in the seasonal candy aisle.

Inside is the standard Cadbury's chocolate, which is one of the best chocolates available to the mass consumer market in America.  I have long believed that the Cadbury chocolate bars are woefully unappreciated, but the same cannot be said for Mini Eggs.  In fact, I don't half suspect Cadbury puts out the Mini Eggs only at Easter in order to entice people into trying its other candy bars in the rest of the year.  I'm pretty sure that's why I first bought a Cadbury bar.

The chocolate inside isn't too loose, and it's not too solid.  It's just the right creamy texture to yield to the tooth with just a little bit of resistance.  Although it may admittedly be slightly on the sweet side, the small size of the eggs helps to offset the sugar overload.  

And after all, isn't that why you bought the little bag instead of the big bag?  You DID buy the little bag, right?  You didn't?  Well that's okay, I won't tell.  Believe me!

Regarding the recent introduction of Cadbury's Royal Dark Mini Eggs: Meh.  I don't care for the dark Cadbury's chocolate bar, and the dark chocolate Mini Eggs did nothing for me.  They were okay, I guess, but I didn't like the different texture.  I'm afraid I'm a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to Mini Eggs!

Creative Commons-licensed image courtesy of Flickr user seanaes