Now this is Halloween. I hope those four simple words got that song from The Nightmare Before Christmas stuck in your head, because I have had it stuck in mine for three days now. I could think of worse Halloween songs. See: The Worst Witch.
Now you really hate me. We’re off to a great start.
The packaging of Cadbury Screme Eggs is simplistic but effective: black background, green oozy blob, and purple accents. Oh, sure, black and orange get all the attention around this time of year, but I think green and purple are the backup players that really add to the Halloween spirit.
And, of course, there’s the name. Could a candy be more primed for a Halloween makeover? Just pop an S on “creme” and you are set.
Cadbury wasn’t content to just make a slight name change and re-decorate some foil, however. More on that in just a second.
Screme Eggs are new in the US this year, but they’ve existed in the UK for…I’m not sure how long, but at least a year. I know this for a fact, because a friend of mine (the same one that sacrificed herself to ingest a pizza stuffed with hot dogs just for the sake of JFB) sent me a Halloween care package last year from the UK that included these eggs. Unfortunately, due to accursed international shipping, the package didn’t arrive until after Halloween was over.
I should have told November to screw off and reviewed the awesome sampling of products anyways, but for some reason I took a hard line on Halloween. I ate the goodies, but I really should have reviewed them. I have regrets, but also bragging rights that I ate Cadbury Screme Eggs before most people in the US had this opportunity. The regret still lingers, however.
Looks pretty innocuous, right? Just another already-existing product with some Halloween packaging. Yawn.
JFB confession time: I hate eggs. I have hated eggs for as long as I can remember. I don’t want to hate eggs; it makes ordering breakfast an unjust challenge. I have often seen breakfast products and thought, “That sounds delicious…too bad it’s an omelet.”
I wish I could say that I’m up for anything when it comes to reviewing foods, but I just can’t bring myself to eat things with eggs in them. I’d consider it a grand character flaw, but I’m sure most people out there have at least one food that they just can’t stand. Eggs are my kryptonite.
This all leads up to an anecdote: when I was a child, I was absolutely convinced that Cadbury Creme Eggs had actual egg inside. Try as she might, my mom could not convince me that these eggs were nothing more than a sugary Easter treat that just happened to look like an egg, inside and out. It took years before I was willing to try one. Kids are stupid.
However, perhaps if I’d had Cadbury Screme Eggs in my life as a child, I would have been much more willing to try them.
AAAHHHHHH! That’s not the typical white-and-yellow filling of a Cadbury Egg! The yolk has been replaced with green ooze! You’ve now completely won my heart, Cadbury Screme Eggs. You’re my Ectoplasm hero.
And yes, as a youth I probably would have been more willing to try an egg with green ooze inside than one that somewhat simulated actual egg filling. Kids.
Not one to rest on their slimy laurels, Cadbury also has a very Halloweenie website, complete with haunted house, bats, and a Halloween countdown clock on the home page. It also has suggestions for Halloween activities like “eyeball race” (hells yeah!) and “pin the wart on the witch”, which I think should replace pin the tail on the donkey year-round.
There’s also a Halloween trivia quiz, with questions like, “Why were Jack o’Lanterns created?” and multiple choice options like “People were lonely and found the face comforting.” It is rather adorable. Let’s face it, Cadbury Screme Eggs are for kids, and adults like me who turn into kids when October 1st rolls around. I also like the idea of lonely people carving into squash because they need a friend. “Oh Jack, you’re such a good listener. No hard feelings about scooping your guts out, right?”
As for the taste, if you’ve eaten a Cadbury Creme Egg, you’ve tasted a Cadbury Screme Egg. Sugar goo inside a milk chocolate shell. Oh, sure, they could have changed the flavoring of the green goo to green apple or something, but you know what? I love Cadbury Screme Eggs just the way they are. Good packaging, fun website, and green ooze inside.
My only bone to pick would be that the egg itself doesn’t have a cool skull on it, but after careful consideration, I think leaving the egg as-is works just as well. It’s innocence betrays nothing of the fun ghost goo that lies inside. It’s like a wall at a haunted house that suddenly drops away to reveal a bloody psychopath who wants to cut you in half with a chainsaw. Halloween is a time of surprises.
As an added bonus, I’m now halfway to making green eggs and ham, and I don’t even have to eat real eggs!
Cadbury Screme Egg
- Score: 4.5 out of 5 disembodied heads covered in slime
- Price: $0.79
- Size: 1.2 oz. egg
- Purchased at: Target
- Nutritional Quirks: These things are almost literally pure sugar. Parents BEWARE