The Definitive Ranking of Worst and Best Easter Candies

In case you didn’t know, Easter is a really big candy holiday.

Did you know more is spent on candy for Easter historically than for Halloween itself? Depending on which data you look at, Easter is as big or bigger than even Halloween. It’s a silent monster.

Last year’s pandemic panic didn’t seem to stop people from celebrating. In 2021, people are more informed on covid transmission and not going to be quite as locked down as they were in 2020. So we are hoping for a bigger candy season due to more get-togethers and Easter egg hunts.

Historically, however, of the people who do not even plan to celebrate Easter, 33% will still buy Easter candy.

That says a lot. There is some good stuff out there, people.

But there is also some pretty bad stuff. We know because you’ve told us loud and clear what you don’t like. As we mentioned before, you have to be careful when asking people about their least favorite holiday candy. It stirs up some deep emotions that can come out in an unfiltered rage.

When we did our Easter season surveys, we asked a whole lot of people about their favorite and least favorite Easter candy. We got 16,000 responses. The results, as well as some of the respondents’ optional comments are included below.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s only and in no way reflect the opinions of CandyStore.com.

Here we go:

The 10 Worst Easter Candies

 

10. Jelly Beans (Generic). Down from #9 last year.

Rounding off the top ten are generic brand jelly beans. Jelly beans come in many different flavors from many many different manufacturers. They are not universally hated for Easter. it’s just that people prefer higher quality jelly beans these days.

The days where you could plop any old jelly bean down into the grassy Easter basket might be gone.

9. Chocolate Crosses. Down from #6 last year.

Chocolate crosses are becoming less unpopular, moving from the #6 spot last year to #9. Much of the backlash against them seems to come from people trying to square the idea of turning a torture device into a yummy chocolate treat.

I have to admit, this one always seemed a little forced to me. I get the whole “reason for the season” movement that some of the more traditional believers have hung their hat on. I do. I grew up in that world. Perhaps that motto works better at Christmas time, when there was no torture. Just a little frankincense and myrrh.

8. Chicks & Rabbits Marshmallow Candy. Down from #5 last year.

I actually quite like these. It seems like most people are comparing them to circus peanuts. Circus peanuts are not good company to keep, if you’re trying to be popular. They were the #1 worst Halloween candy.

Also, they don’t really look like chicks or rabbits. They kind of look like aliens.

7. Bunny Corn / Easter Candy Corn. Down from #4 last year.

Candy corn always places highly among the disliked candy, but this year not quite as high. They moved down 3 spots from #4. Strangely, they can often also place highly on the most liked list. It’s a highly disputed candy type.

For Easter, it seems the hoard have chosen to dislike. I am a confessed candy corn lover, but I will admit the pastel coloring does give me pause. I’d still eat it though.

6. Peeps Easter Candy. Down from #2 last year.

Big jump this year for Peeps! There are several new entries that have moved right up the list bumping off the old guard.

Peeps are a regular on our WORST holiday candy lists. They just don’t get much love outside the diorama art world. They tend to get compared to rubber or sugary foam in the comments we received.

They don’t seem to be a thing that many people want to associate with putting inside their bodies. Put it on a doughnut, however, and they might sing a different tune.

5. Oreo Creme Eggs

Oreo Creme Eggs are a different type of creme egg than the traditional Cadbury’s Creme Eggs. They aren’t quite as high up the list as the originals, so they’ve got some work to do if they want the be reviled the way their cousins have been.

Filled with soft creme and bits of Oreo cookie, these are no less awkward to eat. Maybe the interior is just not quite as runny and generally off-putting.

 

4. Cheeetos Sweetos Cinnamon Puffs

Somehow Cheetos Sweetos got labeled as Easter Candy, and it’s a weird entry. It gained enough votes to be the #4 worst Easter candy though. Just thinking about the things that regular Cheetos do to my insides, I shudder to think what damage these sugar cinnamon puffs might cause.

 

3. Chocolate Bunnies (Solid). No movement this year.

Seems strange, right? Chocolate bunnies are one of the most iconic Easter candies. So what gives?

Solid chocolate bunnies are a buzz kill. You see a chocolate Easter bunny and think how fun it will be to devour it. The thing is, solid chocolate Easter bunnies (as opposed to hollow) are just too much darn chocolate. It’s demoralizing. Here’s this giant, dense brick of chocolate.

Yes, it’s shaped like a bunny, and it’s cute. After one bite, enticing turns to intimidating. You realize there’s no way you are going to devour this thing. The one pictured above is 12 ounces (340g) of chocolate. A regular-sized Hershey Bar is 1.55oz (43g). That solid chocolate bunny is equal to nearly 8 whole Hershey Bars (7.9, to be exact). Could you eat 7.9 Hershey bars?

Probably not. You pull the foil back up over the quarter-eaten bunny ears and long for the time before you made such a foolish attempt on a solid chocolate bunny. A time when your Easter Fun momentum was still on the rise.

2. Sour Patch Kids White Chocolate Bunny. New to the list

So vile that they jumped all the way up to #2 on the list in their very first year of receiving votes. The white chocolate is enough for me personally to leave it aside. Adding sour gummy candy to creamy white chocolate is very unusual and I can see where people might not be loving that combo. It is different though, you gotta give ’em that!

1. Cadbury Creme Eggs. Reigning Champion.

As Easter candy goes, Cadbury Creme Eggs are one of the most well-known candies ever. There were the classic old commercial where the clucking bunny lays an egg and it’s a Cadbury Creme egg.

A whole generation thought rabbits clucked after this …and laid eggs. You gotta give Cadbury credit, there is cultural cachet there.

Cadbury Creme Eggs are a highly unique candy. Chocolate shell with a creamy and sugary goo inside that has both the white and the yolk of the candy egg. It seems like a confectionery engineering marvel. Bravo for creating such a work of candy art. The thing is, they’re just awfully horrible to actually eat.

The chocolate shell is a problem. The thing is hard enough to eat without making a mess, but god forbid the egg has gotten a tiny bit warm and the outer shell has softened. Then you’re in for a sloppy mess with this awkwardly shaped candy whose liquid filling does nothing to support its shape. It falls apart into goo.

Speaking of the shell, its ingredients have recently gone through some changes. Cadbury Creme Eggs’ shell used to be made of Cadbury Dairy Milk Chocolate. But Cadbury was bought by Kraft in 2010, and that was an ominous event. Five years later, they announced the change to a “standard chocolate mix.”

People were not happy about that. They even started a petition to go back to the old recipe.

But the liquid filling is the thing that people seem to have the most problem with. It’s liquid fondant, which ok yeah that sounds gross. Its consistency apparently leaves more than a little something to be desired to most people.

Here are some of the comments on Cadbury Creme Eggs:

Cadbury Creme Eggs aren’t the only Easter candy made by Cadbury. They are the worst, but Cadbury also happen to make the very best.

Which brings us to…

 

The 10 BEST Easter Candies

10. Hershey’s Fun-Sized Candy Bars with Easter Wrappers. New to the list

Your favorite Hershey candy bars in miniature form with Easter wrappers. Why make things complicated? These are beloved at all times of year. Throw some bunnies on the wrappers and call it a day, people.

 

9. Skittles-Filled Easter Eggs. Up from #10 last year.

Skittles Easter eggs combine the fun and re-sealability of candy in a plastic Easter egg, with the desirability of not being generic jelly beans. Skittles are a very popular candy overall. They finished as the #1 overall top Halloween candy last year.

8. Robins Eggs from Whoppers. Down from #7 last year.

Robins Eggs are little Whoppers malt balls shaped like eggs and covered with a crispy candy shell. They are down a spot this year, but still a long time favorite Easter candy.

The shells are colored with speckles to look like little robin eggs, except that robins’ eggs don’t typically come in yellow and coral colors, so far as I know. These are crunchy and satisfying. You can put them inside a plastic Easter egg for a nice surprise or sprinkle them into the Easter basket individually. Very nice.

 

7. Kinder Joy Eggs Candy. Down from #4 last year.

Kinder Eggs haven’t been in the Easter candy lexicon very long, but they made a huge splash the last couple of years. Kinder Joy Eggs only recently became available in the US, but they are a candy giant in Europe and the rest of the world. They fell a few spots this year, as perhaps the novelty is slightly wearing off.

Who doesn’t love a surprise toy inside of anything? And when that thing is yummy chocolate-y wafer balls floating in creamy candy goodness, it’s a win win.

6. Jelly Beans (Gourmet / Naturally-Flavored). Down from #5 last year.

Jelly beans did really well when they distinguished themselves as being gourmet or made with natural flavorings. Basically, any fancy jelly beans work well. You can tell the difference usually by the size. Nice jelly beans tend to be on the smaller side. The flavor difference is gigantic though. The vibrant flavors that come out of naturally flavored, or gourmet jelly beans, like Jelly Belly are great.

5. Mallow Top Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. New to the list.

How can you make Reese’s cups any better? You put a marshmallow top on them. Boom, genius. These new-comers have moved up the board quickly and share the top 5 with another very similar brethren. Will they eventually cannibalize each other?

4. Foil-Wrapped Chocolate Eggs. Up from #8 last year.

Foil-wrapped chocolates made a nice jump up this year, re-entering the top 5 at #4.

These might be my number one top favorite. I love the foil wrapped chocolates, especially when they have some candy crunchies inside. The cookies and creme variety are extra points.

Quick little hit of crunchy chocolate and I’m on to the next piece of candy in my Easter basket. The only drawback is they can be messy if they are eaten warm.

3. Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs. Down from #2 last year.

Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are an absolute juggernaut in the candy world. These are like those, except shaped like an egg. Yeah, that’s about it. Pretty awesome.

 

2. Chocolate Bunnies (Hollow). Up from #3 last year.

Here is the quintessential Easter candy. The chocolate bunny. Tale as old as time, well at least the 19th century. The story goes that there was a German goddess named Ostara, who was the goddess of spring and fertility. Her name is thought by some to be the origin for the very word Easter. In German, the word for Easter is Ostern.

Anyway, there is a myth about her turning a bird into a bunny to save it, so there you have the Easter Bunny. That was hundreds of years ago. Chocolate bunnies are slightly more recent. You can find molds for chocolate bunnies in Germany that go back to the 1890s. They were also being made around that time by some Pennsylvania Dutch, one in particular named Robert L. Strohecker.

It’s fun, it’s big, it’s festive, and it better be hollow. Hollow chocolate bunnies are all the fun without any of the hard work or guilt involved with trying to eat a solid chocolate bunny.

1. Cadbury Mini Eggs. Wins again.

Simply glorious. Ok it’s boring they win every year, but you can’t fight physics.

They may not have the history of chocolate bunnies, but Cadbury Mini Eggs are hugely popular. They were far and away the most popular Easter candy in our study. There is just something about these little eggs that is irresistible.

Is it the softness of the outer shell to the touch? Maybe it’s the way the shell holds strong to the bite for a moment and then gives way to a soft and yummy chocolate center with a satisfying crunch. The flavor of the shell and chocolate combined has a specialness to it that I can’t quite put my finger on. Why is it so darn good?! It just is. Really good.

They are infinitely better than their Creme Egg brethren. And they have their own cute commercial too.

As amazing as they are, they are not without some controversy. A few years ago, Cadbury altered its packaging, and the word “Easter” was no longer on the front of the bag. Some people were outraged, and accused Cadbury of deliberately downplaying the relgious aspect of the holiday.

Cadbury defended itself by saying the move wasn’t intentional and that “Chocolate eggs [are] synonymous with Easter …and the association is now an automatic one.”

Whatever you think of that, it’s hard to deny that Cadbury Mini Eggs are delicious.

There you have it folks. Just like previous years, Cadbury continues to make both the #1 Best and the #1 Worst Easter candy.

Whatever your thoughts about Easter candy are, they likely include thinking about Cadbury’s brand. Winner of Easter: Cadbury.