Shellshock! Cadbury comes clean on Creme Egg chocolate change

Stop all the clocks. Cut off the telephone. Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone.

Monday 12 January 2015 will go down in confectionery history as a bad day. A hurtful day.

The day when it was revealed that Cadbury’s Creme Eggs have changed for ever.

No longer shall the egg shell be made from delicious Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate. It will instead be made from disgusting, foul, vomit-inducing “standard cocoa mix chocolate”.

“It’s no longer Dairy Milk. It is similar, but not exactly Dairy Milk,” said a spokesman for Cadbury, which was bought by the US giant Kraft in 2010 and is now owned by Mondelez, with a flippancy almost as hard to stomach as this new, Frankenstein’s monster of an egg is bound to be.

The spokesman said the new chocolate had been tested on “consumers” – industry shorthand for “idiots”, clearly – and had been “found to be the best one for Creme Egg”.

He added: “The Creme Egg had never been called Cadbury’s Dairy Milk Creme Egg. We have never played on the fact that Dairy Milk was used.”

As true as that may be, it offers little consolation for fans of the original.

The combination of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk and whatever it is that goes into the cream/creme that forms the centre of a true Cadbury Creme Egg is one of the all-time great double acts. Would you separate Laurel and Hardy so lightly? Bill from Hillary? Romeo from Juliet? Bell from spigot?

Of course not. It would be outrageous, not to mention unfair. All those individuals are or were utterly dependent on the other. Their relationships are or were watertight. Cadbury’s Dairy Milk and whatever it is that goes into the cream/creme that forms the centre of a Creme Egg deserved the same respect. The same longevity.

The Cadbury Creme Egg was a rare thing in this modern age. Its subtle blend of delicious chocolate and sweet, creamy/cremey yolk was a throwback to the days when chocolatiers took pride in their work.

Without the Dairy Milk shell – and I say this without having tried the new product, obviously – we are left with nothing less than an abomination. This new Creme Egg is a Creme Egg that is barely worthy of the name. Fabergé, hen, goose … are you watching? Are you willing to have this, this … thing sully your fine work?

There are already two differing Creme Eggs. There is the UK-manufactured flagship, a full 40g of chocolatey egg glory. Then there is its American, dear-god-hide-it-in-the-attic sibling, a wretched creature offering a mere 34g of satisfaction.

Creme Egg enthusiasts thought the UK version was safe, although we should have seen the alarm signs. It is Kraft at whose doorstep this controversy should really be laid. It was Kraft, an awful, immoral, US behemoth, that bought Cadbury, a smiley, cottage-industry, whistle-while-you-work British chocolate-maker in a hostile takeover that created public outcry.

We should have seen the alarm signs. But we were high on Dairy Milk chocolate and and whatever it is that goes into the cream/creme that forms the centre of a Cadbury Creme Egg. We had our egg and we were eating it. We were safe, we thought, as we greedily wolfed down Creme Egg after Creme Egg, laughing maniacally.

Oh how wrong we were.

Already, this egg announcement is threatening the stability of the UK government. What havoc will this monster wreak next?

Are we really going to swallow this bad egg, America? For that is what Cadbury has wrought. A bad egg. And today will for ever be known as a bad day.