Here it is, the ultimate Easter chocolate showdown. It’s the battle of the small, egg-shaped chocolates; whoever wins, we lose. Or something, I don’t know. They’re all chocolate, so I guess whoever wins, we also win.
It’s Cadbury (Mini Eggs) versus Hershey (Eggies) versus Mars (M&M’s Eggs). Apparently there’s also an egg-shaped version of Smarties, so I guess I could have thrown Nestle into the mix, but you have to draw the line somewhere.
The results of this smackdown probably won’t surprise you. Mini Eggs are the original and the best, though Eggies come surprisingly close. If I tasted them both blind, I don’t know that I’d be able to tell the difference. Aside from the size (Mini Eggs are slightly smaller), they’re mostly interchangeable.
It’s honestly kind of weird how similar they taste. They both have a delicate candy shell encasing creamy, vanilla-infused milk chocolate. It’s a tasty combo. It’s also pretty obvious that Eggies are trying very hard to ape the flavour of Mini Eggs, because the chocolate tastes much less like standard Hershey, and more like what you’d expect from Cadbury.
Meanwhile, M&M’s are off in the corner doing their own thing. They taste absolutely nothing like the other two. They’re just M&M’s in a different shape, with a glossy exterior, a thick candy coating, and that very distinctive M&M’s chocolate flavour. I like M&M’s, but these are easily my least favourite of the bunch; something about the different shape and different candy-to-chocolate ratio completely throws off what makes plain M&M’s so tasty. They’re too sweet, the shell is too aggressively crunchy, and they’re just kind of a bummer to eat. They’re clearly inferior to regular M&M’s, and clearly inferior to the other two in this showdown.
As for Eggies versus Mini Eggs? It’s basically a coin toss, but if I have to pick, I’ll go with Mini Eggs; I think the quality of the chocolate is ever-so-slightly better. But they’re both delicious, so either way you can’t go wrong.
Mini Eggs
Manufactured by: Cadbury
Nutritional info (1 package, 33 grams): 170 calories, 8 grams of fat (5 grams of saturated fat, 0.1 grams of trans fat), 5 mg cholesterol, 25 mg sodium, 23 grams of carbohydrates, 22 grams of sugar, 0 grams of fibre, 2 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Sugar, milk ingredients, modified palm and modified vegetable oil, unsweetened chocolate, cocoa butter, gum arabic, soy lecithin, natural and artificial flavour, colour (with tartrazine).
Eggies
Manufactured by: Hershey
Nutritional info (12 pieces, 40 grams): 180 calories, 8 grams of fat (5 grams of saturated fat, 0.1 grams of trans fat), 5 mg cholesterol, 35 mg sodium, 28 grams of carbohydrates, 27 grams of sugar, 1 gram of fibre, 3 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Milk chocolate [sugar, milk ingredients, cocoa butter, unsweetened chocolate, lecithin (soy), polyglycerol polyricinoleate, natural flavour], sugar, corn starch, gum acacia, titanium dioxide, artificial flavour, tartrazine, indigotine, allura red.
M&M’s Eggs
Manufactured by: Mars
Nutritional info (1/4 cup, 42 grams): 200 calories, 8 grams of fat (5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat), 5 mg cholesterol, 30 mg sodium, 29 grams of carbohydrates, 26 grams of sugar, 1 gram of fibre, 2 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Milk chocolate (sugar, cocoa mass, milk ingredients, cocoa butter, lactose, soy lecithin, salt, artificial flavour, flavour), sugar, cornstarch, corn syrup, tapioca dextrin, colour (with tartrazine), carnauba wax, modified coconut oil and / or modified palm oil (medium chain triglycerides), gum acacia.