When my sister and I were growing up, my mother would go all out with the Easter baskets (which is slightly odd, given that she's Jewish). She'd fill brightly colored baskets with that plastic grass and then artfully arrange chocolate, jelly beans, toys and all matter of gummy candies. We'd wake up in the morning to a series of clues that would then lead to the magic baskets.

The crown jewel in the basket 'o delights was always a foil-wrapped Cadbury Creme Egg. I believed in stretching out the Creme Egg pleasure out across several days, nibbling away at the chocolate and scooping out bits of the melty "yolk." It's disgusting to think about now, but I sure loved it then.

Because of this early childhood conditioning, I have quite the soft spot for the Creme Egg, which is why I'm both totally intrigued and a little horrified to learn that in the UK, you can get a Cadbury Creme Egg McFlurry! Described by Julie Klausner as the standard McFlurry ice cream mix with "chips of Cadbury chocolate, and a generous heap of the "yolk" fondant section of a Cadbury Creme Egg."

How long until someone tries to make one of these things at home? Of course, if you do, we totally want to see pictures.

This next Sunday is Easter and no holiday basket is complete without a Cadbury Creme Egg or two rounding out the assortment of jelly beans, malted eggs and gummy treats. With so many formerly seasonal foods and candies now available year round, there is something special and appealing about a treat, no matter how sickeningly sweet, that is only available for a few weeks a year. My sister and I used to be allowed to have only one of these a year and we would make them last for days, nibbling at the chocolate and lapping at the fondant before sealing them up in plastic containers to save for the following day's snack time.

This picture comes to us from Flickr user Fuzuoko and is a delicious representation of the classic Easter candy. Makes me want to run out to the drugstore for one right now!

 Although not available in the US, Cadbury has recently released a chocolate bar that is a play on the Cadbury Creme egg. it's called the Dairy Milk with Creme Egg Bar - or simply the Creme Egg Bar. My first visions were of a Snickers-shaped bar with a huge amount of fondant filling, but the bars are divided up into filled squares in the same manner as other Cadbury filled bars. All reports make them sound as though they have a similar chocolate: fondant ratio as the mini Cadbury Eggs. For me, this is a good thing, since I prefer to have more chocolate to balance the intensely sugary filling, though there are many people who even want their full-sized eggs to contain more fondant.

Taste aside, I can't help by wonder if Cadbury Cremes are meant to be egg-shaped. At least half the fun of eating a Creme Egg is that it is an egg. And besides, the fondant is supposed to look like the inside of an egg, so what's the point of having a spot of orange "yolk" in the center of a chocolate bar?

[Image Chocablog]

If you thought Cadbury Creme Eggs were good enough as they were, and the mini eggs were suitably adorable versions for a kiddie Easter basket, well, then you haven't seen all the hacks making ginormous eggs.

Pimp My Snack took an entire box of regular Cadbury Creme Eggs, cut them open, removed the "yolks," re-molded the chocolate into a giant egg, and created yet another giant Cadbury Creme Egg. Unfortunately, the bidding on eBay for this luscious giant gem has closed.

You think the Cadbury Creme Egg is pimped up? Check out the Mega Twix, about the size of four iPods.

I miss the Cadbury bunny. This isn't the first time I've mentioned him, but I will repeat that the persuasive and adorable clucking bunny is one of the factors that made me want to purchase Cadbury Creme Eggs. How can you resist a treat that comes from the Easter Bunny, after all? It is even more difficult when you are an impressionable child and the cute bunny is offering you chocolate. This is an example of good food advertising (in all its retro glory), with a likable icon and a simple, tasty presentation of the product - a stark contrast to some of the disturbingly creepy ads that companies are using to promote their products nowadays.

The full commercial is after the jump.

Cadbury cream eggs are the favorite chocolates of the Easter season for many. Even with my big sweet tooth, the creamy, ultra-sugary fondant filling is a bit too sweet for me, so I cannot imagine the sugar overload that would follow an attempt to eat the Ultimate Creme Egg. The ultimate creme egg started as 48 individually wrapped Cadbury eggs and a large, hollow milk chocolate eggshell. The fondant fillings were scraped out of the smaller egg and transferred into the large shell, in what must be the coolest Easter egg hack ever.