Jelly beans, Peeps, chocolate eggs all hollowed out with gooey marshmallow inside - we do love Easter candy. We loved poking through the green plastic grass to find the smallest jelly beans at the bottom of our Easter baskets. Easter candy also decorates some of our earliest baking memories...
We always had an angel food cake with mounds of whipped meringue frosting, carefully decorated with green coconut and jelly beans that we placed one by one around the edges (One for the cake, one for me. One for the cake, one for...). This sugar rush of a cake was one of our earliest memories in cake decorating and it obviously imprinted us, since we still feel it is an essential part of Easter - quite superior to any more sophisticated desserts.
Today two lucky readers will get a whole basket of candy to decorate their Easter cakes! The National Confectioners Association will provide Easter baskets for two lucky readers. Each basket will consist of traditional Easter favorites like chocolate bunnies, chocolate eggs, marshmallow chicks and jelly beans, along with some of your favorite year-round candies.
We're drawing winners at midnight tonight so that the baskets can be shipped in time for Easter.
To enter, tell us your favorite kind of Easter candy, and how you would incorporate it into a dessert. You have until midnight to leave a qualifying comment. We'll choose two winners randomly tonight! Good luck...
Type a comment in the comment section below by 8:59pm PT/11:59 EST Tuesday, March 18, 2008. The winner(s) will be selected at random.
US residents only, please.
Giveaway Rules
Please, only one comment per person per giveaway post. Duplicate comments will be discarded. You'll need to be a registered member of the Apartment Therapy network of sites to post a comment. Make sure the email address in your Apartment Therapy registration is valid; that's how we'll contact you if you win. If you haven't registered yet, please join us here: welcome to our community and create an account.
Winners must claim their prize within three business days after the date of notification of such prize. A Sweepstakes winner's failure to respond to the prize notification within the specified three business days will be considered such Sweepstakes winner's forfeiture of the prize and an alternate winner may be selected from the pool of eligible entries. If an entrant is found to be ineligible, an alternate winner may also be selected from the pool of eligible entries.
To enter, you must be a U.S. resident, age 18 or older to enter. Employees, partners and vendors of Apartment Therapy and their immediate family members are not eligible to enter. We will disqualify any entries that we believe are generated by scripts and other automated technology. When applicable, the winner may be required to execute and return within five business days an Affidavit of Eligibility and a Liability and Publicity Release to be eligible for the prize or an alternate winner will be selected.
All prizes will be awarded. No substitutions including for cash are permitted, except that Apartment Therapy reserves the right to substitute a prize of equal or greater monetary value for any prize. Winners shall be responsible and liable for all federal, state and local taxes on the value of their prize. To receive a complete list of winners or a copy of the Official Sweepstakes Rules, send a self-addressed stamped envelope to Apartment Therapy, 22 Howard Street #4i, New York, NY 10013.
(Photo: Nuts Online)
So fun! I'd like to win!
view nongsa's profile
My favorite Easter Candy is the Robin's Egg chocolate malt balls. To incorporate - I'd make a chocolate malted ice cream with the Robin's eggs chopped up and swirled in it!
view renee c.f.'s profile
My favorite easter candy, hands down, is cadbury mini eggs... the kind with the crispy candy coating. They don't need to be used in a dessert, they're perfect the way they are!
view snickitysnack's profile
Chocolate-covered peanut butter eggs. I'm not a dessert maker per se, but they'd be great chopped up and added to brownie batter before baking. Not the most creative, but if I win the basket I promise I'll put the candy to good use.
view Squirrely's profile
If I'm going to break my healthy eating habits, it should be with something wonderful. This should do the trick!
Am I supposed to share with the kiddies? :(
view Snow Gurl's profile
Favorite Easter candy...Cadbury mini-eggs.
I'd make cupcakes and decorate the tops with coconut nests filled with mini-eggs.
view geogneiss's profile
I too am a big fan of the mini-eggs. I like the idea of crushing them and substituting them for chocalte chips in cookies. Hmmm... weekend project?
view hmr's profile
Oooh...someone already said this, but the malted milk ball eggs. I remember as a kid going for my little bag of malted milk ball eggs as soon as my mom let me (no candy before 11...being a kid is hard sometimes!) and then just sucking on them individually until I got to the malted center. So. Good.
view laetitiae's profile
I too love the Cadbury mini eggs, but for a dessert idea using Easter candy; I would chop up Reese's PB Eggs and layer them with ice cream sandwiches and Cool Whip for a delicious, retro treat - this is my husband's birthday treat request nearly every year!
view PAErin's profile
Robin's Eggs malted candy-decoration for coconut cupcakes
view sms's profile
My favorite are the Peeps! I would probably make chocolate cupcakes, and stick a bunny peep in the center and bake them, kinda like a s'more cake.
view zibilee's profile
Peeps pie! Peeps adorning/enhancing the topping of a lemon meringue pie...
view the_hummocks's profile
My favorite Easter candy, by far, are Cadbury Creme Eggs...the full-sized ones. I'd have to wonder, however, if you could cook with them. Perhaps substitute one or two for the chocolate called for in fudge or pudding?
Hmmm, Cadbury Creme Egg pudding...I might have to try that.
view SexyAnteater's profile
I would make a chocolate cake or cupcakes which would be the "dirt" then I would carve out small holes and bury jelly beans inside, replace the carve outs and make it into an easter egg Hunt. Of course, the top would be covered in Marzipan "grass" with other "eastery" candy decorations.
view linda p's profile
i love jelly beans and malted milk balls too. i'd let the kids i babysit decorate cupcakes with the candy.
view foodiegirl's profile
Cadbury cream eggs for sure! I wonder what it would be like to stuff a mini one in the center of a cupcake and bake them? mmm, gooey.... :)
view aggie's profile
I love the little foil-wrapped chocolate eggs. I would unwrap them and drop them into thick brownie batter to make chocolate chunk brownies (preferably with a homemade butterscotch drizzle on top).
view Danio's profile
Yep - Cadbury Creme Eggs. Last year my husband threatened to read the ingredients to me if I didn't share, so he got half. I like Easter candy way better than Halloween.
view LauraII's profile
Malted milk eggs (although those big beautiful jelly beans look yummy too). Easiest way to use them is crushed with my homemade mexican chocolate gelato.
view rcpwjr's profile
All I can say Is wife, mom, friend, survivor, and a great neighbor......I , ME ,,,,I deserve it. YUMO
view riojas7's profile
As a child, my favorite was spice gumdrops cut up and incorporated into oatmeal cookies. Haven't had it for years, but I guess I should probably make it for my kids.
view ADonuts's profile
I can't even lie: I'd serve them plain! Who doesn't love candy, straight-up?
view Anokha's profile
Jelly beans are definitely my favorite - I don't eat them unless it's easter time, and then I sit there thinking, "Man, these are so good, why did I wait till Easter to eat them?"
I just found a recipe online suggesting mixing jelly beans into rice krispie treats. I'm gonna have to try it now!
~Q
view hishtafel's profile
I never was very picky as long as I got a chunk of chocolate. I prefer the white chocalate solid bunnys. Never tried cooking with them but I soppuse they would melt down nicely to swirl into a cake.
view mmmiller's profile
Solid, dark chocolate rabbit are my favorite. And I love chopped chocolate bars in brownies-- what about a bunny brownie?
view rachelrob's profile
Cadbury mini-eggs are the best.... I love the sugary shell! I'd mix them in with vanilla ice cream for dessert.
view SisterRae's profile
Mmm...coconut and chocolate birds' nests with jelly bean eggs.
view philippa's profile
Hmm, my favorite easter candy is the cadbury egg, of course. I would make these AWESOME muffins:
http://bakingbites.com/2008/03/cadbury-creme-egg-muffins/
view cptmoll's profile
Sadly I stopped getting easter baskets long ago..
view sweetheart's profile
I love the pretty little malt ball eggs. I'd put them on top of mini individual tarts to make birds' nests.
view grnktchn's profile
My mom used to make homemade chocolate covered marshmallow eggs. I'd serve it all by itself with a big old glass of milk.
view Naizy's profile
Cadbury eggs are my favorite easter candy.
view carriebee's profile
PEEPS!
peep-krispie treats, made with crushed graham crackers instead of rice krispies. mixing in some kind of easter chocolate make for a tasty springtime s'more :o)
view VeronicaB's profile
I alwasy got a chocolate Easter egg filled with peanut butter from Marie's Candies in West Liberty, Ohio and I would probably try incoporating it into a chocolate cake...I saw something similar on Baking Bites with Cadbury eggs.
view earlybird's profile
I absolutely LOVE Jordan Almonds and the colors are perfect for the holiday. Yet being so hard to bite into I don't think the should be incoporated into any recipe. I will have to go with what I read above, and now want to try!, rice crispy treats with jelly beans (jelly beans being my second favorite)!
view JMara1207's profile
my favorite easter candy is and has always been cadbury mini eggs - not the creme-filled kind, but the kind with the crisp, powdered-sugary shell.
and, though it has never occurred to me to use them in a dessert proper, this post has sent me into creative-thinking mode about them. in addition to all the baking possibilities, i think that a trifle might be the best way to capitalize on both the chocolate and the shell. maybe a raspberry trifle with shortbread crumbles for crust and crushed eggs stirred in and sprinkled on top? yes.
yes, indeed.
view katiebug's profile
I love Cadbury mini eggs, milk not dark, and they are perfect decorations for cupcakes or on a chocolate cake. In a frosting next, of course. A couple of Peeps on the cake guarding the nest would be cute, too.
Or, a chocolate bunny on the cake with a basket filled with Cadbury eggs!
view leanneabe's profile
I love Cadbury Cream Eggs!
I want to try making these cupcakes -- they look amazing!
view aoede's profile
Cadbury mini eggs! I bed they'd be delicious used in place of chocolate chips in something that got them all melty - maybe a blondie...
view surplusj's profile
my favorite easter candy is definately Cadbury Cream Eggs (especially the mini ones that have a better mix of chocolate and cream- yumm). I generally eat all the candies plain, however, put under the gun, decorating cupcakes or cakes with the mini eggs (or the cute spring time colored gum drops) would make a special desert even more of an event!!
view kate to the max's profile
I love jelly beans! I'd top vanilla ice cream with them to add color, texture, and flavor. :)
view leonad's profile
Peeps - as a decoration on top of cupcakes. I know, not very creative but whatever.
view turtleesq's profile
I'm a total chocolate lover, but I'll push past the chocolate bunny to get to the malt eggs.
view Mace Elaine's profile
jelly beans on those twiggy chocolate peanut buttery nests. yum! as it has been years since i've been home for easter and live alone, i tend not to buy easter sweets. this would surely be a treat!
view barefootrooster's profile
Cadbury mini eggs. I'll eat a whole bag in one sitting.
view dusty!'s profile
I love all the little chocolate eggs.
view bipolarbear's profile
My favorite are whopper eggs! I would make a chocolate cake and put a layer in the middle with cholcolate frosting and decoate the top of the cake with them too. Yum!
view ajfein's profile
Mmmmm, those cadbury mini eggs. Recipe-wise, I would take the NYT recipe from a few years ago (was it from Nigella?) that makes a chocolate cake with a chocolate whipped-cream "nest" as frosting and those mini-eggs sprinkled on top.
I also adore the Russell Stover bird nests of chocolate and coconut and jelly bean "eggs."
view ser's profile
peeps dioramas! Yeaaah!
view squidlette's profile
I love the malted milk eggs too. I just eat those by the handful. Good thing they only come around once a year.
view shastaj's profile
peeps, yum. for peeps smores!
view laura b's profile
My favorite candy is Cadbury Creme eggs, but they are so perfect on their own, that incorporating them into any kind of dessert would be a step in the wrong direction.
A close second would be jelly beans, so I'm thinking I'd make a Meyer lemon curd tart, and fold some chopped up jelly beans into the curd for a surprising crunch, then top the tart with torched-Italian meringue-and-jelly-bean decorations.
view carignane's profile
No contest - jelly beans. No recipe, straight up.
view phoneill's profile
I was just whining (to myself) about not getting Easter baskets anymore. I'm also a firm believer in not messing with perfection, I'll take my Easter candy as is. Maybe eaten in conjunction with brunch that included roast lamb.
view norma's profile
Cadbury mini eggs!
view rachel's profile
cadbury mini eggs! and orange jelly beans :)
My family has a tradition of bunny cakes that the little kids always love - a typical yellow cake, baked in 2 8" or 9" round pans. Slice each cake in half, and place the halves together into a half moon, cut sides down on a tray (spackle together with white frosting of your choice).
Cut a pie slice shaped chunk (but with the tip of the pie not cut out) out of the side, from about 1 o'clock to about 3 o'clock (if that makes sense), being sure to not to cut through the whole thing. This shapes the bunny head and the body. Then turn the chunk around, attach it with frosting to the back of the cake (this forms the tail).
Frost entire cake, then cover with sweetened shaved coconut (nice fluffy bunny). Use black jelly beans for eyes, and a pink cadbury egg for a nose. Cut out pink paper ears and attach with toothpicks to the top of the head. (Makes 2 bunnies from one boxed mix, and since I don't bake, I definitely use a boxed mix)
Finally, you can color some additional coconut with green food coloring and spread it onto the tray under the cake, spreading cadbury eggs and jelly beans all around.
view lizb's profile
jelly beans hands down. i don't know how i'd incorporate them into dessert, i guess they would be the dessert!
view selena's profile
My favorite easter candy is the Reese's Peanut Butter Egg. Marshmallow Peeps are a close second :) I also really love the Ring Jells I used to chow down on at Passover Seder as a kid.
view Laurie 11201's profile
When I was growing up I loved peanut butter chocolate eggs, there was a Russell Stover store near my house and around easter it was a wonderland. I would chop them up and add to a really good, really dark chocolate brownie. Or melt them and pour into tiny tart shells made with cream cheese.
Now, I adore the chocolate peeps... rush out and buy some if you haven't tried them. They are the perfect cross between hot chocolate and marshmallows. I'd use them for smores, though I might feel bad lighting the cute bunnies on fire! :D
view thesamanthafiles 's profile
Jelly beans. I notice some are much more flavorful than others. I think the cutest old time Easter dessert is a cake you make with two round cake layers which you cut up to form a bunny wearing a bow tie. The jelly beans are used to decorate the eyes and bow tie. I LOVE EASTER!
JP in DC
view jp in DC 's profile
Jelly beans are by far my favourites. I'd make them into simple little nest cookies-- thumb-print cookies rolled in shredded coconut, pressed, and baked. Then decorate with three "nested" jelly beans. This also works well with Cadbury mini-eggs.
view Transient J's profile
Wow, it's been years since I had an Easter basket - but traditionally, it was the only time I had white chocolate, which (yes, I know it's not *really* chocolate) still to this day is my favorite? How to use it? I can make a killer white chocolate macadamia chunk cookie, or make a bread pudding with white chocolate and some of those lovely local sour cherries I canned last summer.
view Columbus Foodie's profile
Jelly beans are definitely my favorite. I would probably use it all for cupcakes, decorating, mixing it in. It's all good!
view alyssazor's profile
I'd mix jelly beans into cake mix.
view ricedream24's profile
You can't go wrong with jelly beans, especially the traditional mix (sorry, but I'm just not interested in peanut butter or jalapeño jelly beans).
view cjstephens's profile
Cadbury 'flake' chocolate bar - so delicious and delicate! I can really see using one (or many!) them to crumble over whipped cream adorning a piece of banana cream pie!
view Dizastress's profile
PEEPS!! I'VE SEEN THEM MORE AND MORE AROUND OTHER HOLIDAYS, HOWEVER I ONLY LIKE TO ENJOY THEM DURING EASTER..IT DOENS'T SEEM RIGHT ON ANY OF THE OTHER HOLIDAYS!
view neels's profile
For all the peeps lovers:
http://icanhascheezburger.com/2008/03/18/funny-pictures-peep-show/
Also, to Columbus Foodie - Me, too! White chocolate is totally "easter food" in my head. (I also had a fantastic white chocolate and raspberry muffin the other day. wow.)
view katiebug's profile
Every year my mother gives me the same lame excuse - I can't have an Easter basket because I'm Jewish!!!! Please, please reward me with this gift of forbidden treats!
view alexisfromtexas's profile
Malley's chocolate's Nutmallows--milk chocolate covered marshmallows with nuts. And I'd shove those babies in between graham crackers for some tasty S'Mores!
view bobcatsteph3's profile
cadbury creme eggs for me, please. i just read a recipe this morning where someone put the mini-sized ones in muffins! i would like to meet this person.
view rhubarb13's profile
I love both kinds of Cadbury eggs (the cream-filled and the little crunchy ones) and I looove Jelly Belly jelly beans (I don't like the coffee flavored ones, but I like the weird ones like buttered popcorn and jalapeño and I love to eat the pink grapefruit with other fruity ones in a little "fruit salad")
I love them all plain, but I do really like the idea of putting the cadbury cream eggs in a cupcake, yumm!
view zhasmene's profile
Malt ball eggs! I would like to experiment with putting them on top of meringue cookies-- It would be my hope that the meringue would form the "nest" to house the eggs.
view J-fer Rose's profile
Cadbury eggs, maybe with ice cream or in bread pudding!
view ginaS's profile
Oh, absolutely chocolate bunnies and jelly beans. What would easter be without them?
view snowshoe's profile
mmm i love easter candy! peeps, cadbury eggs, all good :)
view missmicker's profile
Black Jelly Beans - yes, I know, the ones people usually trade for red, white, or orange beans. love them. I wonder if I could chop them up and make some sort of black and white spice muffins??? hmmm
view mtnbikediva's profile
Cadbury creme eggs for sundaes, definitely.
view Jekyl's profile
I LOVE Peeps! I'd make cupcakes with green frosting on top piped out to look like blades of grass. Then I'd set the peeps on top. Or that's how I'd do it in theory, anyway. :)
view misswills's profile
Reeses peanut butter cup eggs! I'd have it underneath a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
view Alisa's profile
Jelly beans - the big old-fashioned kind. I'd use them to decorate a chocolate frosted cake (think blue, green, and pink stripes of jelly beans wrapping around the cake). Yummm
view JessDC's profile
jelly beans - i'd make a mosaic with them on top of a cake.
view jviddy's profile
Reese's peanut butter eggs. I would make a sundae with them and vanilla ice cream, chocolate and peanut butter sauce, and whipped cream (and a cherry, of course)
view erin79's profile
Hmmm...I'm going to go with cadbury eggs.
When we were in Scotland a few years back I was totally geeked at the fact that a McDonald's had a cadbury egg flurry. It was yummy.
view Loki Quinn's profile
jelly beans!
i saw a recipe once for jelly bean biscotti that i always thought would be fun and festive this time of year!
view Kate320's profile
chocolate bunny - I would melt some of it for a berry dip. but not the whole thing. wouldn't want it to suffer.
view thechocolatemonster's profile
I love cadbury mini eggs! Those are perfect just the way they are.
But for a dessert, I would take regular cadbury eggs and freeze them. Then unwrap them and coat them in vanilla ice cream and freeze again, so it is like a vanilla ice-cream egg with the cadbury egg in the center. I'd probably decorate the outside - maybe roll in cocoa or sanding sugars, and make a whole bunch so there is an easter basket of frozen treats.
view laura c's profile
Cadbury eggs - bread pudding.
view Andy M.'s profile
peeps please
view hdtex's profile
Chocolate crunch eggs - make a cake with green frosting on the top. Pat the frosting with a fork or spoon to make it look like grass. Then hide the eggs!
view cdsamford's profile
My twin sister and I used to sneak Easter candy to bed in the bottom of our footie pajamas. Now I know better than to leave the wrappers stuffed in the feet! I heart Easter candy ... and carrots!
view eloerke's profile
please!!
view suzy's profile
I'm jewish, but we always did easter secularly. I still get baskets or gift of some sort. My favorite was one year when I got a nice laundry basket and new pillows and linens.
As for candy I love it all. For my dessert I'd make a sundae of pistachio, strawberry and vanilla, decorated with small chocolate bunnies.
view EastVillageAmy's profile
Little Cadbury eggs chopped and blended into a buttercream frosting on cupcakes. Any kind.
view kroessler's profile
I love malt easter eggs. I have seen them crushed in a food processor and made into a milk malted shake. Mmmmmmmm...
view asides's profile
Reese peanut eggs, probably with Ice cream. Followed by black jelly beans, that I would share with my daughter. We are the only black jelly bean lovers in the house. This year I will be eating them alone. She pregnant and nausated. Our first grandchild is on the way! Yeah! Happy Easter every one.
view beachlover's profile
Peeps in smores!! Then you can watch them melt!
view princexy's profile
I love peanut butter chocolate eggs.
Hmmm. I don't really know how to incorporate them into a baked good, except to mix them into ice cream or something.
view bingsy's profile
Cadbury eggs . . . they are a complete dessert on their own. Adding anything to them -- or them to anything -- would be sacreligious.
view KatieG's profile