Are Cadbury Mini Eggs *really* the best? Here's our ultimate Easter chocolate ranking

It’s officially Mini Egg season. While Cadbury’s iconic candy-coated chocolate eggs are available year round, now is the best time to find Mini Egg-filled treats at local bakeries and cafes (and to feel 100 percent justified baking with them at home). But Cadbury isn’t the only player in the candy-coated, miniature chocolate egg game. With the arrival of spring, Hershey’s and President’s Choice have also started selling these bite-sized treats. Many connoisseurs instinctively reach for the Cadbury classic, handily sold in those nearly 1 kilogram bags but they’re not the cheapest option. Is it worth paying premium dollars for your chocolate fix?

I held a blind taste test with Chatelaine staffers to see which chocolate egg would reign supreme.

The Mini Egg Showdown: Cadbury vs Hershey’s vs President’s Choice

Yes, they’re all pastel-hued Easter chocolates but there are some major differences between these Easter candies. Hershey’s Eggies, for instance, are bigger than the other two competitors. Besides size, here’s how they all stack up.

How much do these chocolate eggs cost? -Cadbury Mini Eggs: $18 (Loblaws) for 973 grams -Hershey’s Eggies: $15 (Canadian Tire) for 900 grams -PC Mini Chocolate Eggs: $3.50 for 200 grams (Loblaws)

The mini chocolate egg taste test: Now for the delicious part. I gave each brand its own numbered bowl and had Chatelaine staffers try them all before voting for their favourite. Some candy egg aficionados could immediately distinguish between the three different chocolates while others went into the taste test completely blind. After the candies disappeared, one chocolate egg emerged victorious.

Cadbury Mini Eggs won by a landslide, largely thanks to their creamy milk chocolate taste and crunchy, brightly coloured, festive candy coating. Hershey’s Eggies came in second. Some testers loved getting more chocolate-to-candy ratio, while others felt they were too big to eat by the handful. The President’s Choice Mini Chocolate Eggs ranked third because they tasted least like the classic. In a pinch, all three will satisfy your cravings for nostalgic chocolatey goodness (how can any candy coated chocolate mini egg be bad?), but there’s a reason many of us stash those dark purple bags in our cupboards.

How to use mini eggs, besides eating them by the handful:

1. Mini Egg Brownies Instead of studding your brownies with chocolate chips, throw mini eggs into your brownie batter. They add a nice crunch and an explosion of milk chocolate to this classic dessert. Shake up your go-to recipe or simply use mini eggs to dress up a boxed brownie mix.

2. Mini Egg Cookies Take your favourite chocolate chip cookie recipe and swap out those chips or chocolate chunks with mini eggs. Better yet, use both for a double hit of chocolate.

3. Braided Easter Bread While traditional Greek and Italian braided Easter breads come dotted with chicken eggs, Chatelaine has a recipe that calls for chocolate mini eggs instead.

4. Unicorn Pizza We have a recipe for a sweet and almost psychedelic-looking dessert pizza that’d delight children and adults alike. Best of all, it’s topped with rainbow-coloured mini eggs.

5. Mini Egg Bark
Chatelaine’s pretzel toffee crack recipe is legendary. This homemade confection, which has layers of pretzels, toffee and chocolate is usually sprinkled with pistachios and dried apricots. Ditch the healthy-ish dried fruit and nuts and top yours with lightly chopped mini eggs.