In the spirit of Easter, let’s talk more about Cadbury Creme Eggs.

Most people either love ‘em or hate ‘em. I happen to be a former hater turned lover. Whether or not you enjoy eating them, here are some fun facts for you:

• Over 300 million Cadbury Creme Eggs are made each year, with a third being exported.
• The eggs are for sale from January 1 through Easter Day each year…unless of course you count the smashed and white-speckled ones you may purchase off clearance racks every so often beyond hatching season.
• At some point during the 1980s, the eggs were sold year round, but sales proved this wasn’t eggxactly a great idea.
• At some other point through the years, eggs decreased in size. This became a big topic of discussion in 2007.
• Eggs are sold in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
• There’s a special Facebook page for the egg.
• Some folks actually use chocolate eggs in baking.
• Other folks make their own creme eggs!
• And there are also the folks who make deviled creme eggs…
• Scientists sometimes blow them up.
• They can be purchased individually or in different-sized boxes.

There’s something so nostalgic about Cadbury Creme Eggs. Because of their seasonal availability and affiliation with Easter, we all seem to have special memories.

As someone always turned off by real eggs, the idea of eating a chocolate one resembling a real one turned my stomach as a child. But my younger brother loved them. And I always remember how excited he would get to bite into his first one each Easter. One day, as a candy-loving adult (with a more mature, less-discriminatory, borderline-gluttonous palate), I gave the chocolate eggs a chance and enjoyed what I ended up indulging in. You love that story.

What’s your favorite memory with a Cadbury Creme Egg?

• Cadbury Creme Egg Home Page

As I am not the second coming of Betty Crocker, I’m thankful for baking enthusiasts out there who concoct new ways to get baked goodies and heavenly desserts into my belly. Even better? Using candy as a vehicle to further encourage consumption of said goodies (not that you need extra motivation). For example: cake pops. Haven’t heard of them? It’s exactly as it sounds — cake on a stick, like a blow pop, but instead of a gum-based center, you get a moist mouthful of cake.

Made popular by blogger Bakerella, other bakers have hopped on the cake pop train and have even made a business out of selling them, like this 15-year-old from Kansas did. Apparently, even Starbucks sells them — and if Starbucks is hocking them, you know they’re going to be big.

If you’re thinking of making some yourself, all you have to do is bake a cake (any flavor: chocolate, yellow, strawberry, even funfetti), crumble and mix it with your frosting of choice by rolling into balls, chill in the fridge and then dip in candy melt or even chocolate (but you’ll have to chill them again).

You don’t have to stop there either; Bakerella’s got tons of decorating ideas: teddy bears, robots, snowmen. The possibilities are endless — if you’ve got the patience. I’m not sure I could wait much longer than getting the cake ball onto a stick before scarfing it down.

• Bakerella cake pops articles

Skittles-infused vodka is sooo 2008. This year, it’s all about the bubble gum-infused vodka! Toss a few pieces of your favorite gum into some clear alcohol, and a week or two later, you have a light pink alcoholic infusion that reminds you of your childhood (but is only for those of legal drinking age of course).

The bloggers at Taylor Takes a Taste recommend mixing bubble gum vodka with lemonade for a refreshing aperetif. They also recommend using your favorite vodka for this recipe, but being a cheapster, I would recommend using a less-expensive alcohol if you’re gonna flavor it like bubble gum. Choose your own adventure.

• How to make bubblegum infused vodka [via Craft]
• Lemonade Bubblegum cocktail recipe
• via Craft

What would Lex Luthor eat if he was a Candy Addict? Simple, he’d pop this glowing green Kryptonite candy made by Chemical and Biological Engineering student BrittLiv. This Instructables member created the candy using a commonly-found vitamin, that lends an eerie glow to the candy. The glow is better seen under UV light, but also seems to glow in normal light.

Will this glowing green candy sap Superman of his powers? Probably not. But it might give him a nice boost of Riboflavin!

• How to Make Kryptonite Candy at Instructables

Confession: I have four pounds of almond bark makings in my pantry right this second. I love to experiment with all kinds of different candy bark flavors. Last holiday season, I made peanut butter chocolate bark, fruitcake bark, mint chocolate-chip bark, and coffee bark. I wasn’t clever enough to think of this Birthday Cake Bark, though, which is the brainchild of  Jessica at How Sweet It Is.

You don’t have to wait until the holidays to enjoy candy bark anymore! Now you can have your birthday cake bark and eat it too.

• Recipe: How Sweet It Is

I unwrapped some Reese’s Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Miniatures and baked cookie dough around them to create an innocent-looking sugar cookie with a hidden treasure inside. If prepared correctly, the peanut butter cup stays concealed in the cookie until you bite into it, which makes for an awesome surprise. Personally, I think plain sugar cookies are kinda boring, so adding a peanut butter cup to the cookie definitely helps jazz them up. Peanut butter cups make everything taste better!

You will need:

• Betty Crocker Sugar Cookie Mix + ingredients called for on package
• Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Miniatures (Dark or Regular)
• The usual baking suspects: cookie sheet, bowl, spatula, etc.

Instructions:

Prepare cookie dough according to package instructions. Unwrap peanut butter cups. Cover peanut butter cups with about a tablespoon of dough, being sure to cover the whole candy completely and seal up edges. Place on cookie sheets and bake according to package directions.

Substitutions:

If you don’t want to buy the mix, you can use this technique with store-bought cookie dough (the kind that comes in tubes or tubs), or with a scratch recipe. You want to choose a recipe that makes a more firm cookie (as opposed to a more runny cookie), to make sure the candy stays inside the dough during the baking process instead of leaking out into an icky sticky mess. If you’re not a fan of peanut butter cups, you can use just about any miniature chocolate candy (such as Snickers or Rolo) instead.

The ending to this story is that the cookie mix tasted almost as good as a scratch recipe (the from-scratch snob was surprised!), and happy childhood memories were made. Hmm, maybe the memories were even sweeter because we added some candy to them.

• Reese’s Recipes
• More candy recipes at Candy Addict
• Buy Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups online

Drop by PureSmores.com to find S’mores recipes, the Rascal Flatts download, and a bunch more S’mores stuff!

• PureSmores.com

Chocomize is American (although they use Belgian chocolate) and offers a different range of additions, although they also say that ten billion combinations are possible. They offer some pre-made combinations, which doesn’t seem to be in the spirit of the thing, but as someone who previously lamented that I didn’t really want to pick from among ten billion choices, I guess I shouldn’t throw stones, right?

I ordered a dark chocolate bar with pecan and sour cherries, same as from Chocri, and then threw in some candied rose petals for the heck of it, since I’d thought they’d be better with dark chocolate than the milk I’d had them with before.

I also asked for a sample of the milk and white chocolate for comparison, and actually they sent me two more whole bars with surprise additions. Which – again speaking as someone who didn’t really want to pick from among ten billion choices – was kind of a relief actually.

The milk chocolate bar had blueberries, honey roasted soybeans, and crystallized violet petals – perhaps they overestimated my degree of interest in eating candied flowers. The white chocolate had only dried strawberries, and the simplicity was a nice change from the other two.

Again, I think my personal opinion of the combinations is kind of beside the point. I mean, to start, I think that three things added to a chocolate bar is too much, actually. And you probably know whether or not you like honey roasted soybeans or not. (If you don’t, though, try them. They are surprisingly good, like peanuts but less greasy.) Basically, I am sure you are all grownup responsible chocolate eaters who can be trusted to combine these things for yourselves. You don’t need my opinion.

How about the chocolate, though? Like I said in my Chocri review, I come to this with a prejudice that Americans have a tendency to pile on the toppings (pizza, sandwiches, etc.) with the apparent assumption that if there’s enough stuff on top, it doesn’t matter that the underlying product isn’t of very good quality.

Well, OK, I apologize for my prejudice. This chocolate is less to my personal taste than the Chocri, but neither is it a cheap junk that they’re hoping you won’t notice under a load of gummy bears, wasabi peas and gold flakes.

I was most suspicious of the white chocolate, on general principles, because there is so much bad stuff going under the guise of white chocolate. It didn’t help much that the big, dark, wrinkled lumps of dried strawberries looked on first glance like – um, let’s just say it was something not edible, and maybe only my mind would jump to that idea because I’ve spent a lot of time in my life cleaning up after a wide range of animals.

But the white chocolate is good. It is sweeter than the Chocri, but quite acceptable. And the strawberries are a good addition in the way that strawberries go well with white creamy things.

The dark chocolate is also not bad. Also a hair too sweet – but I like very bitter dark chocolate. The cherries and pecans are good. And so is the rose petal, with a very strong rose flavor, but I wanted to pick it off and eat it separately (which was unfortunately impossible). OK, I give up – candied flower petals on chocolate are a bad idea. I tried something new, now can I please just stick to nuts and crispy rice? Thanks.

The milk chocolate was my least favorite but I am a tough customer for milk chocolate, I prefer it to be basically dark chocolate over which someone has more or less waved a carton of milk. I think it’s fair to assume that someone whose favorite kind of chocolate is milk chocolate is going to like this better than I did.

I don’t care for the ‘big chunks scattered on top’ approach that both of these companies take. I’d rather have smaller pieces more evenly distributed. They’re obviously going for the visual effect, with similar packaging with clear plastic windows displaying the top of the bar. (Which as noted in the case of the strawberries was not such a hot idea.)

Overall I think these bars are – not surprisingly – more pitched to American tastes as far as sweetness level. If you are the sort of person who often complains that things are too sweet, I suspect you would prefer the Chocri. If that is not one of your recurring problems, you are likely going to be OK with the Chocomize. But you would not be embarrassed giving either as a gift, and since they have different toppings, your choice might come down to either the choice of additions and/or the price, which I can’t speak to, having not paid for either one.

So, if this sounds like fun to you, go wild. Personally, now I am going to go eat some PLAIN chocolate for a change of pace. And please, if there is really anyone out who is tempted to order a chocolate bar with Sour Patch Kids on it, I would rather not know about it, OK?

Candy Addict received this product as a sample from the manufacturer. No payment was received for this review and all opinions represent an unbiased view of the product.

• Chocomize Website

With spring trying desperately to make itself known, I thought it would be nice to try another of Beth Kimmerle’s crafty candy creations (say that ten times fast!). Today I bring you gum pops, fun treats that are easy to make, fun for kids (and adults!), and great for the season.

Spring Gum Pops

Wow your friends at your next get together by using candy molds and your favorite chewing gums to make custom-themed gum lollipops. Pick up an assortment of candy mold shapes at baking or craft supply stores and grab your favorite Wrigley’s gum before letting your imagination run wild!

The finished creation can be bundled together for a beautiful and edible centerpiece or used individually as party favors!

You will need
1. Plastic candy mold
2. Several softened sticks of gum
3. Lollipop sticks
4. Vegetable oil or non-stick spray

Gum color recommendations
1. Juicy Fruit for yellow
2. 5 Elixir and Lush for pink and orange
3. Extra Fruit Sensations Berry Paradise for purple
4. Extra Spearmint for green
5. Hubba Bubba Max Island Punch for blue and green

Instructions
1. Clean and dry plastic molds. Using vegetable oil or non-stick spray, lightly grease inside mold cavities. Set molds aside.

2. Unwrap and soften stick gum by kneading in the palm of your hand. The amount of gum you will need depends on mold size but start by kneading several sticks at a time and once soft, place and press firmly into mold cavity. If more gum is needed, repeat steps until mold is completely filled. The softer the gum the better. Try a brand like Juicy Fruit for best results.

3. To transform molded shapes into lollipops, lay sticks along the back of the mold and cover with additional pieces of softened gum.

4. Once molds are filled and sticks are in place, give each a final press and place in refrigerator for about one hour or until gum is completely hardened. Once chilled, remove plastic molds, gently ease gum shape from cavity and enjoy!

• Beth Kimmerle’s Candymonium

Buy Wrigley Gum Online:

• at Amazon.com
• at Candy Crate
• at Old Time Candy

The last time I headed into Dylan’s Candy Bar it was for a fairly hideous Swedish Fish event. So, it was with some trepidation that I ventured back for a media get-together with Beth Kimmerle, author of Chocolate: The Sweet History and Candy: The Sweet History (among others). Thankfully, I was pleasantly surprised by how enjoyable the afternoon turned out.

The event basically showcased Beth’s crafty creations using candy. Some of the things were absolutely amazing (I especially liked the pretzel butterflies – see above), and all were great ways to find creative uses for candy as well as being fun to do with the kids. Beth is a big fan of Life Savers Gummies (who isn’t?) and a lot of her creations seem to utilize the tasty treats. One big thing I found out is that the packaging is changing for Life Savers Gummies – instead of that tubular thing that never seemed to hold quite enough, they’re now coming in small bags. They’ll still fit in your purse, but you get more. Woot!

When we left we got a gift bag containing the ingredients to make some of the creations. Now, let’s face it: these tasty candies are never going to make it past the “open package insert into mouth” stage of creation, but it was a nice thought. We also got some of the recipes highlighted at the event, and I thought our more ambitious readers might enjoy trying one out. So, without further ado, here’s the recipe for those gorgeous Pretzelfly Pops:

Add a little wing to your spring! Use pretzels and Life Savers to make these gorgeous butterfly lollipops that are sure to brighten your afternoon. These beautiful bugs are the perfect sweet treat for an afternoon tea party or baby shower!

To create 10 Pretzelfly Pops, you will need
1. (1) 16 oz. bag of thin pretzels
2. 80 pieces 5 Flavor Life Savers
3. 5 pieces colored licorice (for antennae)
4. 10 lollipop sticks
5. Small plastic bags
6. Parchment paper
7. Cookie sheet

Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 175 degrees.

2. Place Life Savers into small plastic bags, separating them according to color. Seal bags tightly and using an object with a flat surface, like a small pot, gently crush bagged Life Savers into small pieces.

3. Place thin pretzels on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, arranging together in pairs so the pretzels look like wings. Insert a lollipop stick in between each pair. For best butterfly results, arrange so that your lollipop stick and two pretzel ends are touching. Leave ample room at top for licorice antennae.

4. Take the bagged Life Saver candy bits and carefully sprinkle them into the interior part of the pretzel (open space between the rods). Use larger clear pieces to fuse wings and lollipop stick together by placing directly on stick. Use generous amount of Life Savers pieces so they will gel together when melted to achieve the desired effect.

5. Once all pretzel wings are filled with Life Savers, cut 2” pieces of colored licorice and carefully place in top area. Be sure that enough Life Savers are used for proper effect.

6. Steadily place cookie sheet in the oven, making sure all pieces remain in place. Cook your creation for five to eight minutes (at 175 degrees), checking progress regularly to see that Life Savers are melting evenly. Once Life Savers are melted, take the cookie sheet out of oven and allow to cool completely. Once cool, gently take butterfly pops off of parchment paper.

If you make some, let us know how it goes! And keep your eyes peeled for more fun recipes coming soon!

UPDATE: A reader tried the recipe but had some trouble with the temperature. If you plan on making these, you may want to give yourself some extra time and experiment with the temperature if you have a problem. I’ll let you know if the recipe authors have an update on the temperature.

• Beth Kimmerle’s Candymonium

Buy Life Savers Online:

• at Old Time Candy
• at Amazon.com