Happy February 29th!

I don’t get to write the date that much as an adult, at least not as much as I did as a student. Back then leap year was a big deal. Nowadays I’m just excited I get to date my freelancing invoice 2-29-16. And also blog so I can say I posted on leap day.

So far the most exciting thing that happened to me today is that I got a free frozen pizza at Iceland. I then had to eat it for lunch immediately because it wouldn’t fit in my tiny British freezer. I also had to eat the entire pizza myself because … well, I lack self control. No leftover pizza means I can eat clean and healthy tomorrow, right? Except I also bought this:

All this time in London and I’ve never bought a proper Easter egg. This one was on sale and I wanted the mug (and of course, the chocolate).

Here’s to making the most of this extra day, even if that just means eating pizza and chocolate.

(This is not my pug, I found this photo on Reddit. If I did have a pizza-loving pug, you would definitely know about it in every single post)

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London Cadbury Creme Egg Cafe review

A couple weeks ago I got a message from a Facebook friend in Kentucky who knows my love of Cadbury eggs. It was a link to this story.

Now like every other person at the beginning of the year, I’m trying to clean up my diet and watch what I eat after overdoing it during the holidays. But if there was ever a place to indulge in white bread and copious amounts of sugar, it would be the Cadbury Creme de la Creme Egg Cafe.

Yes, you read that right — an actual pop-up cafe that serves dishes revolving around that glorious Easter treat.

In researching the cafe, one theme became apparent: British people are really, really mad that Cadbury changed its recipe from the all-glorious Dairy Milk chocolate to “standard cocoa mix chocolate” last year. For every Facebook comment on Cadbury’s page saying “Brilliant, can’t wait to visit the cafe!” there are 10 posts saying “I won’t be eating another creme egg until you change the recipe back” and (This is a direct quote) “£6 million loss says it all. You can open this, spend millions to advertise it, wrap your eggs in 24 carat gold leaf but they will still be rubbish. Until you change back to the original recipe you will not get any of your lost customers back.”

The general British public isn’t passionate about much, but they are downright passionate about proper chocolate. But if the popularity of the Cadbury Creme Egg Cafe is any sign, some of them are hypocrites who just can’t resist a good Creme Egg gimmick or toastie. Or maybe just Americans like me who know the new British Creme Egg is still better than the ones they’re shilling in the US.

The pop-up cafe is only open Friday-Sunday from 22 January until 6 March. Walk-ins will be accepted, but they highly recommend you book a slot to avoid a long wait.

The morning spots went on sale this past Tuesday I obsessively refreshed the page. It seemed one minute they were not for sale, then the next they were all sold out — except for one spot on Sunday. Though I originally thought I would go with Stephen or a friend, I decided to snap up that solo ticket. I take myself on dates to the theatre all the time — this really wouldn’t be that different, right?

A few hours before my scheduled time at the cafe I checked the event page to confirm the address. It was then that I noticed the small print:

“Individual tickets entitle you to one menu dish only, and you may be sharing a table with others.”

It was not going to be just me, myself and I enjoying a nice Creme Egg toastie. I was going to have to socialize… with strangers. I almost backed out then and there. Why did I think going by myself would be a good idea? Why was I so insistent on booking a seat when I could just get a takeaway toastie for cheaper and avoid human interaction?

But I decided to put on my proverbial big girl panties and suck it up — what’s the worst thing that could happen, I’d be forced to make small talk with fellow Creme Egg lovers? I could handle it.

I strolled up to the cafe on Greek Street 10 minutes before my booked time.

There was a queue for takeaway and walk-ins and a queue for bookings. At our schedule time they let us in to explore the ground floor, where there was a variety of quirky and nostalgic decor.

American vs. British Cadbury Creme Eggs

One of the reasons I came back to the U.S. now was to see 2 of my favorite local bands in concert. Another was to answer an age-old question: what’s the difference between an American and British Cadbury Creme Egg?

I decided it was my duty to answer this question by having a glass of wine and then stuffing my face with 2 Creme Eggs from 2 different countries — for science.

This year Brits got their collective panties in a bunch because Cadbury changed the recipe of the chocolate covering the Creme Eggs from their signature Dairy Milk chocolate to “standard cocoa mix chocolate.” Unfortunately I do not have an old Dairy Milk Creme Egg to compare.

Though the US and UK products are both labelled “Cadbury Creme Egg,” the British ones are made by Kraft (Kraft acquired Cadbury in 2010) and the American ones are made by Hershey. Their packaging differs in color — the American one is blue, yellow, red and green, while the British one is purple, red and yellow.

When I opened them up, they both looked identical. Side note: have Cadbury Eggs gotten smaller over the years, or has my mouth just gotten bigger since I ate them as a kid?

Next I cut them open with a knife. It’s a bit warm in Kentucky now (just wait for the blog post where I complain about that!), so both eggs’ fillings seemed softer and runnier than I remember from past eggs. Maybe I should have chilled them pre-experiment (or conducted another experience on chilled eggs. Next time!).

I attempted to do a viscosity test, but the photos did not come out very good. The texture and color of both fillings was quite similar, although the British filling seemed ever so slightly thicker.

First I took a bite of the American egg. It tasted… like a Cadbury creme egg. Because now that I think about, after being in London almost 5 years I don’t believe I’ve ever eaten a legit British Cadbury creme egg. I’ve eaten the mini ones, the McFlurry, and mini creme egg ice cream cones, but never a full-sized egg. I’ve always either been home in Kentucky for Easter or my parents brought me American candy. So it’s no wonder the American one tasted “right.”

I swished my mouth with water and bit into the British egg. And it tasted… different. Like the Creme Egg mini ice cream cones I had devoured a couple weeks ago. To be honest, I could not taste much of a difference between the chocolate on the two, but the filling was definitely different. It’s hard to describe, but the British one tasted more of powdered sugar, while the American one was more high fructose corn syrupy. So let’s compare ingredients and nutrition.

Here is the nutritional info for the American Cadbury Creme Egg from the Hershey website:

And the British one:

The first thing that jumped out at me was the calorie difference: 150 for the US vs. 177 for the UK. That’s a pretty big difference for a little egg! The US version also has 20 grams of sugar while the UK’s has 26.5. Perhaps that’s because the UK egg’s first ingredient is sugar. While the American one’s is milk chocolate (side note: how is “chocolate” an ingredient in milk chocolate?), followed shortly by sugar and high fructose corn syrup. High fructose corn syrup is banned in the UK, so it’s replaced with glucose syrup and inverted sugar syrup. The coloring agents are also interesting — yellow 6 in America vs. paprika extract in the UK. It’s good to know both contain egg whites, so you can pretend your Cadbury Creme Egg has some vague egg health benefits.

Overall, it was hard to decide which one I prefer. The British one had a more “pure” taste, for lack of a better word, because it was stuffed with so much real sugar. If you’re trying to eat “clean” or “real,” you probably shouldn’t eat any Cadbury Eggs, but if you had to, the British ones would be a safer bet. I think the taste of the UK one wins by a small margin, but the American one gets points just because it tastes so much like childhood Easter memories. Delicious, stomach ache-inducing high fructose corn syrupy memories.

And now I need to wait another month (OK, a week… or at least a day) before I can stomach another Creme Egg.

Cadbury Creme Egg McFlurry: Heaven in an Unusually Small Cup

It is currently 75 degrees (24 C) outside. 75! In April! In London! While Cincinnati and Chicago are getting April showers, London is getting April sunburns. Since the weather is lovely, I decided it was about time I headed out in search of one of these babies:

Yes, that is a Cadbury Creme Egg McFlurry. Cadbury Creme Eggs are possibly the best Easter candy ever, and apparently only the British (and Canadian) are awesome enough to put them in a McFlurry.

I had to have one.

There is no McDonald’s in my neighborhood, so I had to venture through Regent’s Park to Baker Street. I’ve walked through the park a few times and there’s always a handful of people feeding the ducks, but today there were people everywhere — enjoying a sandwich on a bench, lying in the shade, pushing babies in “pushchairs” (why call it a “stroller” when you call it what it is?). I not only had to manuever around the pigeons too fat and lazy to get out of my way, but I had to move around people too. This must be what summer in London is like.

Flowers and people in the park

I finally made it to “MacDons” (as I’ve heard people here call it) and got my precious McFlurry. It was only £1.19 ($1.90), which seems cheaper than the US, but it also was about half the size of an American McFlurry (perhaps another reason Americans are fat?) I went back to Regent’s Park and ate it while sitting on a bench, shooing away the pigeons that wanted to taste something besides stale bread. I took some pictorial proof that the mystical Cadbury Creme Egg McFlurry exists. Here it is chilling with a waterfall in Regent’s Park:

And chilling on a park bench:

Close up of the half-eaten goodness: