Thursday, April 9, 2009

House Brand Creme Eggs

While some folks find the Cadbury Creme Egg to be the ultimate achievement in Easter confectionery, be warned that there are some pretenders to that throne. At the stores this year I found two such “knock offs.”

Generic Eggs & Cadbury

I found Walgreen’s and CVS had their own eggs this year. The CVS brand is called Absolutely Divine and comes in gold foil with a purple and black logo ... which made me wonder if they were a dark chocolate product. The Walgreen’s version is in primary/secondary colors and comes in both the Creme Egg and Caramel Egg.

Easter Eggs: Creme & Caramel (Walgreens)What could a store brand have to offer? Well, the first thing I noticed about these CCE simulations is that they’re bigger. In fact the shelf box for the Walgreen’s said that they’re 14% larger. These eggs are like the once powerful Cadbury Creme Eggs in their original 1.38 ounce size (CCE are now 1.2 ounces).

Walgreen’s had these generic looking Creme Eggs on sale this past weekend for 40 cents each, which is not much less than an actual Cadbury Creme Egg. What I found so surprising is that I’ve been to that Walgreen’s at least twice before during this Easter season and these weren’t out on the shelves.

It was tough to read the wrapper. What I did get was that these are made in Canada and the chocolate shell is made of real chocolate.

Walgreen's Creme EggThe shell has a little line design on it, not the same as the Cadbury Creme Egg, so at least they’re using different molds.

Biting into the egg was a bit tough. It’s a thick shell and I was greeted with a creme that resembled a cordial more than the fondant than I was used to.

The difference between the egg white and egg yolk wasn’t quite apparent, though the best I could tell was there were two different colors of fondant in there. The center was sticky and inconsistent. Sweet, flavorless with little patches of clotted graininess.

Rating: 3 out of 10.

Walgreen's Caramel EggThe Walgreen’s Caramel Egg comes in a purple wrapper. It was pretty easy to unwrap, but it felt quite heavy.

Biting it was similarly difficult to the Creme version - the shell is thick and almost solid on either end with only a minor void for the caramel at the center.

The caramel isn’t chewy or flowing. Instead it’s more of a pudding-like goo. As far a flavor though, it’s like a good caramel pudding, it’s very smooth and has some toasted sugar flavors. The chocolate shell is a bit hard, a little grainy and very milky tasting.

As far as this brand goes, I rather liked this Caramel Egg ... not enough to buy it again, but as a simulation of the venerable original, it at least meets expectations.

Rating: 4 out of 10.

Absolutely Divine (CVS)The CVS Absolutely Divine Creme Egg didn’t look like much in the store. There was no explanation on the display box, and actually finding the “creme egg” part on the wrapper was pretty tough sleuthing that involved carefully flattening the foil after unwrapping.

I fully expected these to be made in Canada like the Walgreen’s counterpart ... that they just came spilling off the line to be randomly divided into different groups for different foil wrappers. This was more shocking when I read that they have identical ingredients and molding. But origins aside, the important part is how much they cost and how they taste.

I paid 50 cents each for these.

CVS Absolutely Divine EggThe egg was similarly thick-shelled.

The creme center was also similarly inconsistent, though not quite as flowing as the Walgreen’s version.

The chocolate shell was disgusting. It tasted like roasted cardboard. Musty, grainy and overly sweetened, perhaps steamed cardboard.

The sweet filling was completely overpowered by this too-much-bad-shell. And the name, well, they’re absolutely not divine.

Rating: 2 out of 10.

I have one other piece of not-so-shocking info. These are all sticky. Not something to be eaten while using a keyboard.

What I came away with is this: if you love Cadbury Creme Eggs, buy Cadbury Creme Eggs. If you don’t like Cadbury Creme Eggs, these aren’t going to persuade you that they’re a great candy. Spend the extra eight cents or whatever the price difference is and get the real stuff.

Related Candies

  1. Cream Drops versus Creme Drops
  2. Junior Fruit Cremes
  3. Vanilla Creme Kisses
  4. Cadbury Canadian Creme Eggs
  5. Cadbury Orange Creme Eggs
  6. Cadbury Mini Eggs
Name: Creme Eggs & Caramel Egg
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Walgreen's & CVS
Place Purchased: Walgreen's (Echo Park) & CVS (3rd & Fairfax)
Price: $.40 & $.50
Size: 1.38 ounces
Calories per ounce: unknown
Categories: Chocolate, Fondant, United States, Canada, Designer Imposter, Easter

POSTED BY Cybele AT 11:45 am Tracker Pixel for Entry    

Comments
  1. This may be considered sacrilege for a candy lover, but I actually don’t like Cadbury creme eggs that much.  The filling is indeed kind of messy and too sweet for my taste.  However, I do like most other kinds of chocolate and candy.

    Comment by Delia on 4/09/09 at 12:32 pm #
  2. This post made me hungry for my annual cadbury creme egg, so I went to Walgreens to get one—and there were none in sight!  They had the Cadbury caramel egg, as well as these generic creme eggs.  Very strange thing to be lacking.  Anyway, I ended up getting a Russel Stover brownie egg, which I think you said you haven’t tried yet.  It was super delish, but more like a rum truffle than a brownie—would have been great with some walnuts, for my money.

    Comment by JJR on 4/09/09 at 1:12 pm #
  3. As a Walgreens employee I could have told you to avoid those eggs. We’re now selling them 5 for $1 just trying to clear them out.

    To JJR: that’s the problem with putting up Easter candy the day after Valentine’s. We’ve been out of the Cadbury and Reese’s eggs for a while now as well.

    Comment by Plushie Banjo on 4/09/09 at 1:58 pm #
  4. Is walgreens just like Walmart? Because I hate walmart, today I got treated badly by a cashier.

    Comment by Rielle on 4/09/09 at 2:36 pm #
  5. I think you may have put the sentence for the Walgreen’s creme egg center flavor “The center was sticky and inconsistent. Sweet, flavorless with little patches of clotted graininess.” under the description for the caramel egg. Otherwise, there’s no description for the creme egg flavors, and you call the caramel egg simultaneously “very smooth”, “grainy”, “flavorless” and “like a good caramel pudding”.

    Comment by Iris on 4/09/09 at 4:47 pm #
  6. Cybele's avatar

    Iris - thanks for pointing that out, I clumsily moved the order of the items in the review around but didn’t check that the proper descriptions were in line. All fixed! (I hope)

    Rielle - Walgreen’s is much older than Walmart. It’s just a drug store chain, not a super-store-discounter. In my area was have Rite Aid, Long’s, CVS and Walgreen’s. Pretty much interchangeable.

    Plushie Banjo - You should have been the one ringing me up! The checker at my store just smiled and said, “you must have a sweet tooth.”

    JJR - I have had the Brownie Egg, I just haven’t photographed it. It is definitely tasty, but I didn’t see them in the stores near me. (And I’d much prefer a brownie egg to a creme egg.)

    Delia - luckily there’s lots to chose from during Easter!

    Comment by Cybele on 4/09/09 at 5:02 pm #
  7. The only problem with Cadbury eggs is making sure they’re fresh! Too often you bite into one that’s completely dried out. I really ought to return them when that happens…

    Comment by Alix on 4/10/09 at 4:52 am #
  8. HELP!  Can someone tell me where to find white circus peanuts in Manhattan??  I need them for a kids recipe and I’m going crazy trying to find them.  Any leads woudl be GREAT!

    Comment by alexa on 4/10/09 at 7:18 am #
  9. Just goes to show: don’t mess with the original.  I’m grateful to live in an Irish neighborhood where I have easy access to imported Cadbury Creme Eggs.  Not only are they the original (bigger) size, but they’re even tastier—the chocolate is creamier.

    Comment by Maura on 4/10/09 at 8:45 am #
  10. Plushie Banjo—they were also TOTALLY out of Cadbury Mini eggs, which would have been my second choice.  I used to always find them on sale after Easter, but not these days.

    Cybele—I was really struck by how good and chocolatey the brownie egg smelled—it really came wafting out of the package.  I also got an RS peanut butter egg—I found it too salty, and the chocolate/pb ratio too inconsistent.  The starting bites were mostly chocolate, but in the middle it was just an overpowering wad of whipped peanut goo, with no chocolate taste at all.

    I didn’t realize I had it in me to geek out this much over Easter candy. :-p

    Comment by JJR on 4/10/09 at 1:30 pm #
  11. Try the Cadbury orange Creme Eggs.  They’re good.

    Comment by Dave on 4/10/09 at 5:22 pm #
  12. I got my sisters and myself some of the Cadbury eggs. I ate the chocolate cream one and I was astonished at how much cream there was in the egg. I would have preferred a solid chocolate egg, or even some air. All the cream they put in those things is way too much!

    These eggs sound rather unappetizing… :D I might stick to small non-hollow eggs from now on.

    Comment by Magda on 4/13/09 at 9:18 am #
  13. The original Cadbury Creme Egg is just perfect the way it is.  I know they’ve changed it up with caramel, chocolate and orange creme.  I’ve tried them all and there is no comparison.  I hoped when they came out with the orange that it would be good, but it was waaaaaay to orangey.  Even the minis aren’t that great.  They tend to dry out.  The original is the best.  I grew up in England and they have them year round there!  No need to wait for Easter.

    Comment by Sofa821 on 4/15/09 at 10:36 am #
  14. I picked up some of the Absolutely Divine on a post-Easter discount candy lark. They’re not that bad. I’m not connoisseur, but for a quarter they definitely get the job done.

    Comment by Anon on 4/20/09 at 4:57 pm #
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