Easter's a bit confusing, isn't it? I've managed to get my head around the crucifixion being on 'Good' Friday and Easter weekend falling on different dates every year - but now I find myself befuddled by the whole egg thing. Try as I might, I simply can't find a reference to breakfasty ovoids in the Easter bit of The Bible. As it turns out, I've been looking at the wrong book and the wrong religion. The eggy stuff comes from the pagan tradition, representing new life and the emerging Spring.
With all that clarified, I was about to relax when another puzzler struck. What's the deal with chocolate eggs? Almost certain our pagan ancestors didn't have access to confectionery (not even a finger of Fudge), I'm driven to wonder when and how the Creme Egg entered our lives. Here is what I've discovered:
The cream packed egg was launched by Cadbury as long ago as 1923, but the actual Creme Egg brand didn't appear until 1971. Interestingly, it had to wait four years to make its TV advertising debut. But, once it had splashed itself over the small screen, there was no looking back. Year-on-year growth since the mid 1970s has seen the Cadbury Creme Egg (CCE) become one of the most recognisable images of Easter across the globe. This year, over 300 million Cadbury Creme Eggs will be manufactured, and 100 million will be exported. If you laid all the eggs made at the CCE plant end to end, they would stretch from the factory to Sydney. Clearly gooey yellow and white fondant is big business.
Right, I'm hitting my stride now, so another question occurs. How do they get the gloopy stuff inside the 'shell'? It's a query that crosses your mind in the moment of consumption, but remains unanswered as more pressing matters distract you (this may just be me). Let's fix that.
The CCE is created by pouring molten chocolate into a half-egg shaped mould. This shape is then topped up with the white fondant before a measured spot of yellow 'is dabbed into it, making the yolk.' Now the science bit. Because fondant is denser than chocolate, it doesn't mix, pushing the chocolate outwards. This is very much like the legend of Archimedes displacing the water in his bath before legging it down the road shouting 'Eureka!' (although he wasn't sitting in a bath of melted milk chocolate as that would be weird).
Two molded halves are finally and rapidly closed together and cooled to set the chocolate. When the moulds are opened, the egg heads off to be wrapped in foil (by a machine rather than magic pixies) and then to be packaged. The CCE plant in Bournville can produce more than 1.5 million eggs a day.
The CCE is the only chocolate product made to look like a real egg once bitten and the filling is really called 'Goo' by the Cadbury folk.
A brand this famous has, of course, brought us many distinctive advertising campaigns, incredibly Cadbury has been asking 'How do you eat yours?' since the 1980s. And it's a tremendous example of the copywriter understanding the product and audience. Whether everybody eats their Egg in a slightly different way or not, it feels as though we do, thereby creating an affectionate link with the brand - not to mention the desire to buy and consume a CCE to check how we scoff it. Unfortunately, the more recent campaign, urging us to 'Release the Goo', is somewhat less inventive.
For the record, this is how the population eat their CCEs:
- 53% bite off the top, lick out the 'creme' then eat the chocolate
- 20% just bite straight through
- 16% use their finger to scoop out the 'creme'
In business terms, the CCE is the UK's most popular single chocolate purchase between January & Easter, outselling its rival by more than 2 to1. In fact, every year enough CCEs are sold to furnish every British citizen with three apiece. And to settle a regular pub table debate, CCEs are constantly being made BUT are only sold between January and Easter.
So now, armed with this vital knowledge, you can enjoy your long weekend and your CCE.
I'm still not sure why they spell 'cream' as 'creme' though.
Happy Easter.
Magnus Shaw - writer, blogger & broadcaster
www.magnusshaw.co.uk
www.creativepool.co.uk/magnusshaw
