Here are a few Easter candies I bought but I’m not going to get around to doing a full review.

Ghirardelli Milk & Coconut Chocolate Eggs come in a little 3.5 ounce bag and like the other two versions available for Easter, they’re a bit on the pricey side. I paid $3.99 for this little bag.

I was actually out at CVS looking for the Cadbury Hollow Bunny that I noted in my roundup of products for 2013. (I was hoping it was on sale, because the first time I saw them, they were $4.79 for a 3.5 ounce bunny and I didn’t really want to fork that over for Cadbury chocolate.) While looking though I spotted this bag, which reader Kate mentioned was available last year.

They’re pretty and feature good quality milk chocolate. These were a little softer in texture and had a silky melt. The coconut mixed into the chocolate is crispy, though it does become chewy after a while. It’s a nice combination of textures and flavors. I found the coconut a little too, I don’t know, difficult to get out of my teeth. Still, I manged to finish the bag within 24 hours, so I must have liked them. I’ll still go for the Milk Crisp version over this.

Rating: 7 out of 10

I found Ferrero Tic Tac Bunny Burst at Target with all the other little Easter Basket stuffers. I didn’t see a press release on this, so I didn’t know it was coming out. Further, there’s no listing on the package or anywhere I can find on the internet that says what flavors are actually in the Bunny Burst.

The green is pretty easy to figure out. It was green apple. They’re sweet and tangy, with a very sweet, odd aftertaste. I didn’t care much for it and was hoping for better in the lilac colored ones.

The soft purple is a bit of a mystery flavor. The ingredients list dried apple, dried grape, dried acerola (West Indian Cherry) and dried lychee. So I’m going to call this one tropical. It has a light green grape note, I also tasted violets along with a floral melon and vague medicinal cherry note. At one point did think about lychees, as well. It’s interesting and unique. Not really what I’d call good or refreshing, but I didn’t notice the weird sweet and metallic aftertaste with this one.

They’re made in Canada and contain carmine, so they’re not suitable for vegetarians.

Rating: 6 out of 10

I bought this pair of Cemoi Classic Creamy Egg (Milk Chocolate) at Cost Plus World Market. I was actually hoping to find a dark chocolate version, perhaps more upscale, of the classic Cadbury Creme Egg.

This is not that. I can’t give it a full review because I didn’t actually eat it. Both were sticky and oozy under the foil wrap, though I made my choices from the box at the store very carefully. I opened both and found overly sweet, grainy fondant. The chocolate was marginal, it was all just very sweet and unappealing. So into the trash they went.

Rating: 3 out of 10

I reviewed the Snickers Peanut Butter Squared before when they came out. The Snickers Peanut Butter Egg is the same construction, only in hemispherical ovoid shape. It’s a little different because it’s molded instead of being enrobed. Of course the domed shape also means different bites have different ratios. But overall I noticed more caramel in it. The chocolate and caramel and peanut with peanut butter is a nice combination. The salty peanut butter keeps it from being too sweet. I enjoyed it more than the Square thing. I also reviewed the Santa version of this which also has different proportions because of the shape of the mold.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Related Candies

1. Ghirardelli Milk & Crisp Chocolate Eggs
2. Snickers Pumpkin
3. 3 Musketeers Coconut
4. Zitrone Honig Tic Tac
5. Tic Tac Pink Grapefruit
6. House Brand Creme Eggs
7. Dove Truffle and Snickers Eggs

Russell Stover is a fixture at American drug stores at Easter with their large variety of single serving Easter eggs. New this year is the Russell Stover Cookie Dough Egg.

This new egg follows the same sort of construction as the Red Velvet Santa first spotted for Christmas (also available as an egg). The center is an actual flour-based dough. Unlike other fondant centers which are just whipped up sugars, this one is a bit more complex. Here’s the ingredient list (forgive me for any transcription errors, it’s green printing on a cream background):

Milk chocolate (sugar, whole milk, cocoa butter, chocolate, soy lecithin, vanillin), Sugar, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough (Wheat flour, brown sugar, partially hydrogenated palm kernel oil, sugar, chocolate morsels (sugar, chocolate, cocoa butter, soy lecithin), glycerine, high fructose corn syrup, palm oil, natural flavors (milk), salt, soy lecthin, xanthan gum, sodium bicarbonate), corn syurp, dairy cream, condensed milk, partially hydrogenated palm kernel oil, chocolate cookies (enriched wheat flour [contains niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), sugar, cocoa (processed with alkalai) vegetable shortening (partially hydrogenated soybean and/or cottonseed oils) high fructose corn syrup, cornflour, chocolate, salt, diglycerides with citric acid, invertase and tocopherols.

So, instead of a short list, this is long and includes lots of flour, so it’s not gluten free. It also contains high fructose corn syrup a few times, which is disappointing because Russell Stover, while not being top of the line, is usually filled with plain old sugar and corn syrup. This is what happens when candy makers start adding bakery items. Unlike actually cookie dough, this has no egg products.

The egg looks like many of the other milk chocolate Russell Stover varieties. It’s on the flat side, and has two rows of glossy ripples. It’s about two inches long and one and a quarter inches wide.

The bite is soft and the center is, well, doughy. It’s not dry but not quite as moist as I expect. It has a grain to it, with the sugar being noticeable and I might have detected a little salt as well. The flour taste is not noticeable (sometimes real cookie dough can taste like raw flour).

Unlike cookie dough nugget products, this has more of the satisfaction of eating a spoonful of dough. The chocolate chips didn’t do much for me, but the milk chocolate coating was smooth, creamy and a sweet complement to the dough. I’d prefer a dark chocolate version, as I put dark chips in my cookies. It’s similar to their Brownie Egg (which it turns out, I’ve never reviewed), but naturally less chocolatey.

It’s a good rendition of cookie dough as a candy. I don’t know if I’d grab this over something like their marshmallows or the Pecan Delight, but I know there are some folks who will really appreciate this.

Related Candies

1. Russell Stover Red Velvet Santa
2. Russell Stover Big Bite Pecan Delight Egg
3. Russell Stover Eggs (2009 edition)
4. Russell Stover Eggs
5. Cookie Dough Bites
6. Russell Stover Eggs (2007 edition)
7. Russell Stover Cream Eggs

Nestle NestEgg Creamy Caramel come in a lovely purple bag with little flowers and butterflies on it. It’s all quite charming.

The idea of caramel filled milk chocolate eggs is pretty appealing, too. There’s no dearth of choices at Easter, as I think that Cadbury may have the corner on that market with their mini version of the Cadbury Mini Caramel Egg that comes in a little egg carton. But the Nestle version, though not quite as charmingly packaged, were far less expensive. (The Cadbury’s were actually the same price, but only had 4.8 ounces in them, instead of 10 ounces in the Nestle bag.)

The little foil wrapped eggs come in two different colors: purple and a sort of pastel green. They helpfully have the candy contents printed on the foil; if you’re like me and like to mix your foil covered sweets, this is extremely helpful. Inside the foil the little eggs are nicely molded with the Nestle logo on two sides.

The eggs smell sweet and a little like cereal. The size is nice, I like to gently press along the seam to pull the eggs apart into little dishes of caramel. The chocolate is exceptionally sweet, a little grainy and on the fudgy side. The caramel is smooth and has a little bit of a salty and dark note to it, keeping it from being equally sweet. On the whole, they’re, well, cloying. I can have a couple, but then I’m done. They make my throat hurt. I’m still drawn to the look of them.

I’m hoping that someday Ghiradelli will do a dark chocolate salted caramel version (their new Easter eggs here) ... I’d definitely pay the premium for that.

Nestle also makes several other versions of their NestEggs. There’s a classic Nestle Crunch and a version of the Butterfinger that has milk chocolate mixed with Butterfinger peanut butter pieces. I’ve had the Jingle (Christmas bell) version, and they’re pretty good. Again, there are better versions if you’re willing to pay a premium.

Nestle has not given any information about the sourcing of the ingredients, though they are on track for more sustainable targets for the future.

Related Candies

1. Dove Sea Salt Caramel Dark Chocolate Promises
2. Ghirardelli Intense Dark Sea Salt Soiree
3. Nestle Butterfinger Pumpkin
4. Nestle Creme Eggs
5. Russell Stover Eggs
6. Wonka Golden Creme Egg
7. Cadbury Eggs: Creme & Caramel

Zitner’s Butter Krak Eggs are a local favorite in Philadelphia. Their Easter egg selections have been made since 1922. Like many candy companies, it started with a family recipe, sold to friends and neighbors at the holidays and expanded from there.

I don’t remember eating them when I lived in Pennsylvania, and I’ve never seen them in stores anywhere else. One of my fellow candy bloggers did send me a couple about five years ago (but it was after Easter, so I didn’t post a review) so I have had them recently.

I was looking forward to trying them again, so I put in an order from a webstore called PA General Store that sells Philadelphia favorites. I ordered a mixed box of 24, which included a selection of their four single serving sized eggs: Butter Krak, Peanut Butter, Double Cocoanut & Butter Cream Eggs.

Zitners Butter Krak Egg is one of those names that sticks with you. The odd thing is that the actual description of the egg was a mystery to me.

They’re a coconut butter cream covered in dark chocolate, but the chocolate also has toasted coconut in it. (Well, they call it cocoanut. More on that later.)

All of the eggs are about the same size, about 2.5 inches long, about 1 inch in diameter and weigh 1 and 1/8 of an ounce. So they’re nice portions, about double the size of a boxed chocolate.

The dark chocolate has a lot of the crispy toasted coconut in it, it gives it a nice texture and is actually toasted and crispy (which is hard to balance without them becoming too hard and difficult to chew). The center is soft and creamy, like a buttercream frosting. It’s sugary but has an overall smooth texture. There’s a lot of coconut in there, though it’s shorter minced bits, so not too chewy.

The dark chocolate isn’t bitter but still balances the sweetness of the center well. This is one of those candies that I would like once or twice a year and I can see why it’s a local favorite. I’m not sure if I’ve had another version quite like it.

Zitners Double Cocoanut Egg is interesting for two reasons. First, the spelling of cocoanut. It’s the less used spelling of coconut, but it always makes me think of the Cocoanut Grove, the nightclub once located here in Los Angeles at the Ambassador Hotel.

Now, if no one told me the names of these eggs, I would have thought the Butter Krak was double the coconut, because it has coconut in the center and the chocolate. But the reality is that the cream center of the Double Cocoanut Egg actually has twice the coconut than, well, I guess the Butter Krak center.

It is dense. It’s not as buttery, sweet or moist as the Butter Krak. But it is coconutty. The center barely holds together. I liked how it was so much less sweet than all the other eggs I’d tried, it was far more satisfying. Still, it was just a chocolate covered coconut egg, though it was fresh and I generally like them, this one didn’t blow me away.

Zitners Milk Chocolate Peanut Butter Egg was my favorite. It’s not really that hard to make a good peanut butter egg and they’ve done a great job. The peanut butter center isn’t too dry and not too sticky smooth either. The texture is very similar to a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup with a noticeable grain and fair amount of peanut butter oils. The tops of my eggs were a little soft, a hazard when coating peanut butter with chocolate. But they held together well. The peanut butter has just the right hint of salt and has a peanut butter cookie dough texture.

They don’t quite top the Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs but if you want to go for something locally made (if you are on the Eastern Seaboard) this is a nice option. (Though I don’t know where their milk chocolate comes from.)

Zitners Butter Cream Egg was my least favorite of the bunch. It’s extremely sweet. The center is pure mushy sweetness. I was hoping it was going to have a defined butter flavor, or perhaps a brown sugar note. Instead it’s like a log of frosting covered in dark chocolate. The dark chocolate, though thin, does moderate the overt sweetness (as does a little bit of salt) but it’s still too insanely sweet with no other flavors or textures to provide a respite.

On the other hand, Easter is always the most insanely sweet season, the time of year when I yearn for white chocolate, so I know there must be plenty of people out there who must have these.

If I lived in an area where I had a choice between these and Russell Stover, I’d probably go for these in Peanut Butter or the Butter Krak over any of the Russell Stover varieties. (Except for the Pecan Delight.) But I live in a See’s area, and though they don’t offer them at the drug store in individually wrapped pieces, I would make the trip to get their Scotchmallow Eggs or mix of Egg Quartet (though they cost about 25% more).

Related Candies

1. See’s Orange Cream Lollypops, Mayfair Egg & Pecan Butterscotch Bar
2. Russell Stover Eggs (2009 edition)
3. Russell Stover Eggs
4. Russell Stover Eggs (2007 edition)
5. See’s Egg Quartet
6. See’s Scotchmallow Eggs
7. Reese’s Eggs

Easter is that special time when seasonal favorites return to the shelves. It’s our last candy holiday before the long hot summer, so stock up while you can.

I’ve been visiting the stores to look at what’s returned on stores shelves and of course seeking out new items.

Here’s a rundown of what I’ve spotted or heard that other readers have seen again at stores this year. Let me know if there’s something I missed, or something you’re looking for.

Hershey’s
Hershey’s Candy Coated White Chocolate Flavored Eggs
Hershey’s Candy Coated Milk Chocolate Eggs
Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs (foil wrapped)
Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs (single serving)
Reese’s Pieces Pastel Eggs (candy coated)
Cadbury Creme Eggs - Caramel, Classic & Chocolate. Both regular size and the small “cartons” of a dozen.
Cadbury Mini Eggs - Milk Chocolate
Cadbury Mini Eggs - Dark Chocolate
Cadbury 3.5 ounce White Foil Hollow Rabbit (New!)
Whoppers Robin Eggs
Hershey’s Kisses Coconut Creme
Jolly Rancher Jelly Beans
Jolly Rancher Wild Berry Jelly Beans

Nestle
Nestle Crunch NestEggs
Nestle Butterfinger NestEggs
Nestle Creamy Caramel NestEggs

Wonka (part of Nestle)
Hoppin’ Nerds
Laffy Taffy Jelly Beans
Spring Chewy Spree
SweeTarts Ducks, Chicks & Bunnies (2012 version)
SweeTarts Bunnies Gummies
Gobstoppers Egg Breakers

Mars
White Chocolate M&Ms (Target Only)
Carrot Cake flavored White Chocolate M&Ms (Walmart Only)
Snickers Eggs
Milky Way Caramel Eggs
Twix Eggs (new!)
Pastel M&Ms - Milk Chocolate, Peanut, Peanut Butter, Almond & Pretzel
Dove Coconut Eggs
Dove White Chocolate Eggs
3 Musketeers Marshmallow (minis only)

Wrigley’s (part of Mars)
Life Savers Spring Mix
Life Savers Jelly Beans
Life Savers Pastel Jelly Beans
Life Savers Gummi Bunnies & Eggs
Pastel Skittles (still has Lime not Green Apple)
Starburst Jelly Beans
Starburst Sour Jelly Beans
Starburst Crazy Beans
Starburst FaveReds Jelly Beans

Ghirardelli
Milk Chocolate Foil Eggs
Milk Chocolate Crisp Foil Eggs
Ghirardelli Easter Chocolate Squares

Cadbury Adams (part of Kraft)
Sour Patch Bunnies
Swedish Fish & Eggs
Swedish Fish Jelly Beans (New!)
Sour Patch Jelly Beans

Ferrara Candy (now includes Brach’s, Trolli & Ferrara Pan)
Trolli Gummi Bunnies
Brach’s Classic Jelly Bird Eggs (large & small) - made in Mexico
Brach’s Classic Spice Jelly Beans - Made in Mexico
Brach’s Jelly Chicks & Rabbits
Brach’s Marshmallow Chicks & Rabbits
Brach’s Pastel Fiesta Malted Milk Eggs (real milk chocolate)
Brach’s Bunny Basket Eggs (marshmallow)

Russell Stover
Maple Cream Egg
Strawberry Cream Egg
Caramel Egg
Big Bite Pecan Egg
Caramel Creme Egg (like Cadbury)
Vanilla Creme Egg (like Cadbury)
Chocolate Creme Egg (egg shaped)
Peanut Butter Egg (egg shaped)
Red Velvet Egg
Cookie Dough Egg (new!)
Brownie Egg
Extra Crunchy Peanut Butter Egg
Vanilla Creme Egg
Cookies ‘n Cream Nest
Coconut Nest (jelly beans have returned)

Individually Wrapped in Bags: Caramel Eggs, Marshmallow Eggs, Coconut Cream Eggs

Tootsie
Easter Dots
Pastel Egg Tootsie Pops
Spring Color Sugar Babies
Junior Mint Pastels

Just Born
Peeps Peepsters
Peeps of all colors
Peeps XL
Peeps Milk Chocolate Egg (pictured)
Mike and Ike Jelly Beans
Hot Tamale Beans

Also:
R.M. Palmer Quax
R.M. Palmer My Little Bunny
Dum Dums with Jelly Bean Centers
Haribo Gummi Bunnies (of special note because they’re made in Germany, not Turkey or Spain)
Real Eggshell Filled with Hazelnut Truffle
See’s Orange Cream Lollipops
Milka Lil Scoops

You can prowl back into the review archive of Easter candy by viewing all the candies tagged for Easter.

Related Candies

1. Halloween Candy Spotting 2012
2. Milka L’il Scoops
3. The All American Chocolate Bunny Battle
4. Au’some Easter 3-Dees Gummy
5. Russell Stover Hollow Milk Chocolate Bunny
6. Lindt Chocolate Bunnies (Dark & Milk)