Cadbury Creme Eggs: The Gooey Easter Treat Laid by a Bunny

For better or worse, American foods have a tendency to find their way to the far corners of the earth, which is why steak-flavored Doritos are popular in Europe and South Koreans give tins of Spam as gifts. But if there’s a notable exception to the tradition of America exporting all of its treats, it’s a 1.2-ounce oval-shaped confection from Britain that’s presently flying off store shelves before they all disappear come April 17. We speak, of course, of the Cadbury Creme Egg. Even if you don’t plan on eating any, you can’t miss them. Each year around this time, the seasonal confection takes over checkout lanes across America. According to data from RetailMeNot, Cadbury Creme Eggs are the third best-selling Easter candy in the U.S. In Britain, they’re more popular still: Consumers gorge themselves on 500 million of the things yearly. But why? It's not like chocolate is hard to find. “It has to do with the seasonality of it,” suggested Cadbury archivist Sarah Foden. “We launch it on the first of January, and after Easter, you cannot buy it.” Consumers, she said, are aware of this fact, which is why so many scramble to get to stores. Many stock up so they can eat the treats during the other eight months of the year. We can thank the Brits for starting all this. Birmingham merchant John Cadbury made his fortune selling hot chocolate, and his sons introduced chocolate Easter eggs as early as 1875. The first creme-filled eggs appeared in 1923, but it would take decades for the company to truly capitalize on the treat, introducing the Cadbury Creme Egg as we know it in 1971. After being test marketed across the pond in 1979, the confection appeared on American store shelves two years later. The candy’s distinctive yolk is called “goo”—a liquified fondant that’s shot into two halves of the chocolate shell before a book mold clamps them together. There’s even a video of this process filmed at the Bournville factory in Birmingham, U.K. For the record, Hershey holds the license for Cadbury chocolate stateside (even though American food giant Mondelēz owns Cadbury itself.) But while Hershey makes Cadbury products for sale in the U.S., Mondelēz still makes the Creme Eggs for Hershey. What's more, the recipes differ slightly, and a quick online search yields fans arguing over which side of the Atlantic has the better version (aficionados insist the British chocolate is smoother). But one thing is certain: With a single Cadbury Creme Egg packing a full day’s worth of sugar, fans will need to hop to the gym after indulging. It's the bunny, honey Shortly after Cadbury Creme Eggs debuted stateside, Americans got wind of them via a TV spot featuring a white rabbit that clucked like a hen and “laid” the chocolate eggs. The Cadbury Bunny has been with us, in one form or another, ever since. The latest incarnation of the campaign invites Americans to submit photos of their pets—wearing rabbit ears, of course—for a chance at being the honorary mascot. An NBC affiliate in Buffalo, N.Y., recently ran the headline: “Local Llama Looking to Become Next Cadbury Bunny," but the llama didn't win—an Ohio therapy dog named Annie Rose did. Shell game Starting in the 1820s, coffee and tea merchant John Cadbury (1) prospered by adding hot chocolate to his offerings (2), setting the stage for what would become a chocolate empire. By the 1920s, the company was making creme-filled chocolate Easter eggs (3), introducing the Cadbury Creme Egg as we know it in 1971. The signature filling (4) is really just two colors of liquified fondant.

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Cadbury Creme Eggs: The Gooey Easter Treat Laid by a Bunny

How a beloved British confection cracked the American market and became a seasonal sensation

Robert Klara

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Robert Klara