The Mighty Creme Egg

It’s safe to say that here in the UK we have some damn good chocolate, and we love any excuse to pig out and enjoy it. For many of us Brits, Easter centres around one thing – chocolate eggs! In particular, one Easter Egg stands out head and shoulders above the rest as our treat of choice during Easter – you’ve guessed it – the mighty Creme Egg. We want to give this timeless classic the praise it deserves by telling you all a little bit more about our gooey favourite, and why we love it so. 

The History of Creme Egg

Having been invented by the Cadbury brothers in 1923, the crème-filled egg has been around for nearly 100 years. Originally known as Fry’s Creme Egg it was rebranded in 1971 to become Cadbury’s Creme Egg. Remarkably, the tried and tested formula hasn’t much changed over the years and there have been few noticeable differences in the egg since 1963.

Image from Bristol Live

However, back in 2015, die-hard Creme Egg lovers were left fuming with Cadbury after they decided to no longer make the eggshell using Dairy Milk chocolate – instead opting for a cheaper milk chocolate mix. This backlash led to a loss of a whopping £6 million in sales that year!

In spite of this, the Creme Egg continues to be hugely popular, with over 500 million being made every year – two-thirds of which are sold in the UK. If that doesn’t sound impressive enough, look at it this way: “if all the Cadbury Creme Eggs made in a year were stacked on top of each other, the pile would be ten times higher than Mount Everest!”.

What Makes Creme Eggs So “Egg-cellent”

So, why are Creme Eggs so popular? Other than the obvious fact that they’re delicious, it also could be down to the fact that they aren’t available year-round like many other chocolates. “Goo Season” only runs from January to April, which creates exclusivity and excitement around buying them. For many, this also means that people bulk buy and eat far more Creme Eggs than you would do a regular chocolate bar that you know you can eat any time you wish. 

Of course, first and foremost though, we love Creme Eggs because they are so darn tasty! Although their name would have you believe that they are filled with crème, the filling is actually a fondant mix. The egg gains its unique ‘real’ egg yolk appearance through the use of food colouring – paprika extract to be precise. 

We love Creme Eggs so much that, over the years, a number of variations have been introduced. Now you can enjoy products such as bags of Mini Creme Eggs (bite-sized chunks of creme egg deliciousness), Cadbury Creme Egg Twisted (Creme Eggs in the classic chocolate bar shape), or, for the cake lovers out there, they even make Cadbury Creme Egg Cake Bars.

For the more traditionalists amongst us, you can also get a standard milk chocolate Easter Egg that comes with Creme Eggs inside in either a medium or large egg.

How to Enjoy Your Creme Egg This Easter

When it comes to Creme Eggs, why limit yourself to only enjoying them as they are? Why not try some of the weird and wonderful recipes out there. Here are some of our favourite ideas:

• Creme Egg brownies – A match made in heaven. The gooey fondant filling and crispy outer shell work perfectly when smashed, or cut, up and sprinkled into your brownie mixture. Be sure to include some bigger bits on top to really get the full sugary sweet impact! 

• Creme Egg stuffed cookies – A simple yet delicious recipe. Try including half a Creme Egg sandwiched in the middle of your cookie dough mix for the gooiest cookie ever!
• Creme Egg milkshake – There’s no baking needed for this fantastic treat – all you need is a blender, some milk, and ice-cream for a devilishly decadent drink
• Deep-fried Creme Egg – As the purveyors of the fried Mars Bar, it’s no surprise that some enterprising Brit thought of battering and deep-frying our favourite Easter choccy too!
• Hot-crossed Creme Egg pudding – A marriage of two quintessential British-Easter must-haves. This recipe simply involves popping hot-crossed buns, Creme Eggs, and custard (of course) into the oven to make a gloriously unusual combination. 
• Creme Egg toastie – Yet another wonderfully simple, yet effective, treat, pop crushed up Creme Eggs between two buttery white slices of bread and heat them up in your toastie maker. Who said Creme Eggs can’t be a meal? 

These are just a few ways to enjoy taking your Creme Egg game to the next level. Do you have any more recipes you think we should try? Let us know in the comments below. 

According to a survey conducted by the creators of the classic, we all eat our Creme Eggs a little differently. The most popular way to eat your Creme Egg (that 53% of us do according to Cadbury) is to bite off the top, lick out the creme, and then eat the chocolate. On the other hand, 20% of us bite straight through the egg, while only 6% use their finger to scoop out the filling before eating the rest. No matter how you enjoy your egg, there’s one thing for certain, we Brits just cannot get enough of them! Let us know how you eat your Creme Egg in the comments below.