An Authoritative Ranking of Easter Candy

I grew up in a secular family, so Easter for me has always been defined by candy rather than religion. I grew up worshipping at the altar of Cadbury, Hershey’s, Nestlé, and whatever off-brand candy company made a chocolate version of Scooby Doo that year.

But whether you’re a kid hunting for eggs or you’re a grown-up buying chocolate at the deli near your house after getting drunk at 3 AM, you probably have an opinion about which Easter treat is best. There are just so many ways that sugar and chocolate can be fashioned into the shapes of eggs, ducks and bunnies.

So I’m here to settle it. This is it—the definitive ranking of classic Easter candies.

7. Peeps

They’re supposed to be chicks right? Whatever they are, these marshmallow mounds are not good. A friend described them to me well: “Like a lot of things, they look good but are disappointing when you put them in your mouth.”

After consuming three Peeps in a row, my teeth started to ache. This wasn’t just disappointment, it was cavities forming in real time.

You know what’s more enjoyable than eating a peep? Watching 10 of them melt in a frying pan.

6. Generic hollow rabbit

Everyone’s received one of these little friends—and the disappointment of realizing it’s hollow—at some point or another. Sometimes they’re white chocolate. Sometimes they’re dark chocolate. Most of the time, they’re something approximating milk chocolate.

The most satisfying part is the sadistic pleasure that comes with determining the order you eat the rabbit’s body parts in. Will you eat the ears first, rending this lapine confection symbolically deaf? Or do you go right for the butt?

You always could just smash it.

5. Cheap foil eggs

Your average, run-of-the-mill foil-wrapped egg that kind of tastes like cardboard. These are what you find under your couch four months after Easter has ended, dust off, unwrap, tentatively eat, and realize they taste exactly the same as it did on Easter. This doesn’t concern you nearly as much as it should.

4. Lindt Lindor Eggs

Same as above, but if your family was fancy enough to buy chocolate that is actually chocolate.

3. Cadbury Creme Eggs

Another polarizing item. The world erupted in outrage in February when someone pointed out that there are six teaspoons of sugar packed inside of each of these bad boys. To be fair, I don’t think that’s all that surprising. What did you expect? A chocolate egg full of kale?

Creme Eggs perfectly encapsulate what a holiday candy should be—over-indulgent and something you would never want to eat any other time of the year. Ruin your body for this week only folks, ‘tis the season!

2. Kinder Surprise

America rejoiced in November when it was announced that the long-banned Kinder eggs would be coming to the country in the form of something called the Kinder Joy.

I hate to break it to you America, but as a Canadian I can confirm that the Kinder Joy does not capture the true essence of the Kinder Surprise. It’s half-baked — literally. It’s half an eggshell filled with white chocolate hazelnut goop and a plastic toy in the other half. That’s not an egg. If you crack open a chicken egg to make an omelette and find that situation, you should worry.

And as an added bonus to the joy of a proper Kinder Surprise, you can always use them to smuggle drugs in your butt, apparently.

My biggest question: does the Kinder Maxi — an ostrich-egg-sized chocolate behemoth — fall under the American Kinder ban? Imagine choking on that monster.

1. Cadbury Mini Eggs

This isn’t even close.

The sheer volume of knock-off versions available is obvious proof of just how good the original Mini Egg is. Cherish them. Love them. Worship them.