Snacking, Noshing, Tasting

Bunnies and Eggs Come In All Shades of Chocolate

March 28, 2015 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

Peeps, jellybeans, and Cadbury eggs are extremely popular types of Easter candy, but on Easter kids head for chocolate Easter bunnies first.

No matter how old we are, we all have our preferred way of attacking the chocolate rabbit. Just so you know where you rank, 76% of us eat the ears first, 13% bite off the feet, and 10% go for the tail. Sixty-five percent of adults prefer milk chocolate, 27% prefer dark chocolate.

Bunnies aren’t the only chocolate treat of the season. Chocolate eggs — solid, hollow, decorated, candy-coated, and filled with sweetness – give the bunnies a race through the grass.

Easter Eggs – the Confectionary Type

Easter is the second ranked holiday for candy purchases in the United States (just behind Halloween) and solid, hollow, and filled chocolate Easter eggs and chocolate bunnies are extremely popular choices of Easter candy.

Chocolate Easter eggs, along with chocolate bunnies, first made their appearance in the 1800’s. They can be found everywhere and at every price point, some piped with flowers and others wrapped in foil. You can find them in chain stores, discount stores, high-end chocolatiers, and sitting in a bowl on just about every receptionist’s desk.

Hollow and Solid Chocolate Easter Eggs

Today’s Easter eggs are mostly sweet chocolate made from cocoa solids, fat, sugar, and some form of milk. The first chocolate eggs were solid, made of a ground roasted cacao bean paste. Hollow eggs didn’t come on the scene until a type of “eating chocolate” was developed. By the turn of the 19^th century the improved process of making chocolate, along with newer manufacturing methods, made chocolate Easter eggs an Easter gift of choice.

Decorated with Flowers and Wrapped in Shiny Foil

John Cadbury make the first French eating chocolate in 1842, but the first Cadbury Easter eggs didn’t arrive until 1875 and were a far cry from today’s Cadbury Crème egg. Early Cadbury eggs were smooth surfaced dark chocolate filled with small silver candy balls called dragees.

Early decorated eggs were plain shells piped with chocolate and marzipan flowers. Today’s chocolate Easter eggs are predominantly milk chocolate and include solid, hollow, decorated, and filled eggs.

The Cadbury Crème Egg that’s so popular now, has a chocolate shell and a filling of white and yellow fondant made of sugar and water beaten into a crème. Since the first egg was made in the 1920s, new varieties include fillings of caramel, chocolate, mint, and peanut butter.

The average calories in popular types of chocolate Easter eggs:

Hershey’s

Cadbury Chocolate Crème Easter Egg, 1 egg (39g): 180 calories, 8g fat, 25g carbs
Cadbury Crème Egg, original milk chocolate with soft fondant crème center, 1 egg (39g): 170 calories, 6g fat), 28g carbs
Cadbury Mini Eggs, 1 package (1.4 ounces): 190 calories, 9g fat, 27g carbs
Cadbury Mini Caramel Eggs, 4 pieces (1.3 ounces): 180 calories, 9g fat, 23g carbs
Cadbury Mini Egg, 12 eggs (40g): 200 calories, 9g fat, 28g carbs
Milk Chocolate (foil) Eggs, 7 pieces (1.4 ounces): 200 calories, 12g fat, 24g carbs
Candy Coated Eggs, 8 pieces (1.3 ounces): 180 calories, 8g fat, 27g carbs

Dove

Silky Smooth Milk Chocolate Eggs, 6 eggs: 240 calories, 14g fat, 26g carbs
Foil Dark/Milk Chocolate Eggs, 6 eggs (1.5 ounces): 230 calories, 14g fat, 26g carbs

Reese’s

Milk Chocolate and Peanut Butter Eggs, 5 pieces (38g): 190 calories, 12g fat, 21g carbs
Reese’s Pastel Eggs, 12 pieces (1.4 ounces): 190 calories, 8g fat, 25g carbs
Reese’s Giant Peanut Butter Egg (whole egg, 6 ounces): 880 calories, 52g fat, 100g carbs

M&M’s

Milk Chocolate Speck-Tacular Eggs: 1/4 Cup (12 pieces): 210 calories, 10g fat, 29g carbs
M&M’s Peanut Butter Eggs, ¼ cup: 220 calories, 13g fat, 23g carbs
M&M’s Pretzel Eggs, ¼ cup: 180 calories, 6g fat, 28g carbs

Snickers

Original Peanut Butter Egg (1.1 ounce): 160 calories, 10g fat, 18g carbs
Snickers Mini Filled Egg (0.9 ounce): 130 calories, 6g fat, 17g carbs

Russell Stover

Caramel Egg (1 ounce): 130 calories, 6g fat, 19g carbs
Truffle Egg (1 ounce): 140 calories, 8g fat, 15g carbs

Whoppers

Robin Eggs, 8 pieces (1.4 ounces): 180 calories, 5g fat, 3g carbs
Mini Robin Eggs, 24 pieces (1.4 ounces): 190 calories, 5g fat, 35g carbs

Nestle

Butterfinger Eggs, 5 pieces (1.5 ounces): 210 calories, 11g fat, 29g carbs
Crunch Eggs, 5 pieces (1.3 ounces): 190 calories, 10g fat, 25g carbs

The average calories in popular types of chocolate Easter bunnies:

Solid Milk Chocolate Easter Bunny (2.5 ounces): 370 calories (average)
Dove Solid Chocolate Easter Bunny, whole bunny (4.5 ounces): 675 calories
Cadbury Solid Milk Chocolate Easter Bunny: 890 calories
Lindt Dark/Milk Chocolate Bunny (1.4 ounces): 225 caloriesSees Whole Bunny (4.5 ounces): 650 calories
Reese’s Peanut Butter/Reester, whole bunny (5 ounces): 720 calories
Russell Stover, whole bunny (4 ounces): 630 calories

Kosher Chocolate Candy

According to the Hershey Company website, Hershey’s candy coated milk chocolate eggs, chocolate crème eggs, peanut butter eggs, and all Hershey’s kisses are OUD.

If you want more sweet stuff, for 99 cents you can get the lowdown on Easter Candy. Check out my ebook, Easter Candy Facts and Fun on Amazon. You’ll spend less than you would on jelly beans. It’s also way fewer calories than a chocolate bunny!

Marshmallow Peeps: do you love ‘em or hate ‘em?

March 26, 2015 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

If you have a thing for the fluorescent marshmallow bunnies and chicks that were hatched over 50 years ago, you’re not alone. They got their name – PEEPS — because they were originally modeled after the yellow chick. Now they’re made for Christmas, Halloween, and Valentine’s Day, too — so you can get them in yellow, pink, blue, lavender, orange, and green shapes that represent the different holidays. They also come chocolate dipped.

PEEPS continue to be the subject of lots of design contests (you’d be amazed what you can make out of peeps) and scientific experiments (some claim them to be indestructible). Just Born, the parent company of PEEPS, claims to produce enough PEEPS in one year to circle the Earth twice. Their website even boasts a fan club and a section for recipes.

Millions of Peeps

Each Easter season, Americans buy more than 700 million Marshmallow Peeps shaped like chicks, bunnies, and eggs, making them the most popular non-chocolate Easter candy.
As many as 4.2 million Marshmallow Peeps, bunnies, and other shapes can be made each day.
In 1953, it took 27 hours to create a Marshmallow Peep. Today it takes six minutes.
Yellow Peeps are the most popular, followed by pink, lavender, blue, and white.
Peeps seem to be almost indestructible and are famous for their two-year shelf life. Scientists at Emory University claimed that Peeps eyes “wouldn’t dissolve in anything.” They tried to dissolve Peeps with water, sulfuric acid, and sodium hydroxide. No luck.

Do You Like Your PEEPS Soft Or Crunchy?

People have definite Peeps preferences. Some like them nice and soft, others like to leave them out in the air to age to perfection and acquire a little crunch on the outside.

They’ve been microwaved (careful, they expand and can really make a mess in your microwave), frozen, roasted, used to top hot chocolate, and added to recipes. Because their outer sugar coating tends to burn, they don’t toast well on sticks like regular marshmallows.

What’s In Them?

Send a PEEP to a lab for analysis and you’ll find sugar, corn syrup, gelatin, less than 0.5% of the following ingredients: yellow #5 (tartrazine), potassium sorbate (a preservative), natural flavors, dye, and carnauba wax
They’re gluten and nut free but are not Kosher
You can get sugar free PEEPS that are made with Splenda
Five little chicks (42g, one serving size) will set you back 140 calories, 0g fat, 1g protein, and 36g carbs

Jellybeans: Do You Eat Them By The Handful Or One-By-One?

March 22, 2015 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

Jellybeans: do you think they should they should come with a warning label, “STOP NOW or you’ll keep eating until they’re gone?”

Seriously – it’s pretty darn hard not to love those little nuggets of sweetness that come in multitudes of colors and flavors and get stuck in your teeth!

The Birth Of The Jellybean

The gummy insides of the jellybean might be related to the centuries old treat, Turkish Delight. And their outsides bring to mind the colored hard candy coating, developed in the late 17^th century, for the Jordan almond.

The modern jellybean became popular during the American Civil War when Boston’s William Schraft encouraged sending candy to Union soldiers and the jellybean held up well.

Jellybeans were the first bulk candy. They were first sold by weight as penny candy in the early 1900s – bulk jellybeans for nine cents a pound.

Around 1930 they became popular as Easter candy because of their egg shape, which represents spring, fertility, and resurrection.

The Many Flavors And Colors Of Jellybeans

Standard jellybeans come in fruit flavors but there are a huge number of flavors available — some goofy, some sophisticated — like spiced, mint, gourmet, tropical, popcorn, bubble gum, pepper, and cola. They also come in a sugar free version (seems weird, but true).

Whatever your flavor preference, Americans eat a whole lot of jellybeans – around 16 billion at Easter — enough to circle the globe nearly three times if all the Easter jellybeans were lined up end to end.

Handfuls Or One By One — And What Flavor?

How do you eat your jellybeans? Do you go for handfuls at a time or pick and choose your colors and eat them one by one?

70% of kids ages 6–11 prefer to eat Easter jellybeans one at a time
23% say they eat several at once
Boys (29%) are more likely to eat a handful than girls (18%)
Kids say their favorite Easter jellybean flavors are cherry (20%), strawberry (12%), grape (10%), lime (7%), and blueberry (6%).

What’s In The Hard Shelled Nugget Of Sweetness?

Jellybeans are primarily made of sugar and also usually contain gelatin (Jelly Bellies don’t), corn syrup, modified food starch, and less than 0.5% of citric acid, sodium citrate, artificial flavors, confectioners glaze, pectin, carnauba wax, white mineral oil, magnesium hydroxide, and artificial colors (takes some of the fun out of them, doesn’t it?).

Originally, there was just the traditional jellybean, which has flavor only in the shell. In 1976, the Jelly Belly (Goelitz) Candy Company introduced gourmet jellybeans. Unlike traditional jellybeans, Jelly Bellies are smaller and softer than the traditional kind and are flavored both inside and outside. Jelly Belly makes about 50 different flavors of gourmet jellybeans.

How Many Calories Are In Jellybeans?

Even though they may give you Technicolor insides, jellybeans are fat free. On average:

10 small jellybeans (11g) have 41 calories, no fat, no cholesterol, no protein, and 10.3 grams of carbs
10 large jellybeans (1oz or 28g) have 105 calories, no fat, no cholesterol, no protein, and 26.2g carbs
10 Jelly Bellies have 40 calories (4 calories a piece), or about 100 calories in a single serving (25 beans)

Some Jelly Belly Jellybean Trivia

Jelly Bellies were invented in 1976. They were the first jellybeans to be sold in single flavors and to come with a menu of flavor choices.
It takes 7 to 21 days to make a single Jelly Belly jellybean.
Very Cherry was the most popular Jelly Belly flavor for two decades until 1998, when Buttered Popcorn took over. Very Cherry moved back into the top spot by only 8 million beans in 2003.
Some jellybeans do contain gelatin, but Jelly Bellies don’t. According to the Jelly Belly website, they are suitable for vegetarians although strict vegans may have issues with the beeswax and shellac that are used to give them their final buff and polish.
Jelly Belly doesn’t use wheat, rye, barley, or oats in the basic recipe for Jelly Belly jellybeans but does use cornstarch as the modified food starch.
Jelly Bellies have been certified kosher for the last two decades by the Kashrut supervision of KO Kosher Service. Since 2007 all Jelly Belly products have been certified by the Orthodox Union. Teenee Beanee jelly beans and Just Born jellybeans are Pareve & O/U; Jelly Bellies are certified OU Kosher.

For 99 cents you can get the lowdown on Easter Candy. Check out my ebook Easter Candy Facts and Fun on Amazon. You’ll spend less than you would on jelly beans. It’s also way fewer calories than a chocolate bunny!

Girl Scout Cookies: the original recipe and more …

March 4, 2015 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

Thin Mints may account for 25% of Girl Scout cookie sales, but the thin chocolate wafers bear little resemblance (other than being cookies) to the original girl scout cookies.

The first Girl Scout troop was organized over a hundred years ago (March 12, 1912) in Savannah, Georgia. Selling cookies — a way to finance troop activities — began as early as 1917 when they were sold in an Oklahoma high school cafeteria as a service project.

Girl Scout cookies were originally baked in home kitchens with moms as the “technical advisers.” In July 1922, The American Girl Magazine, which was published by Girl Scout national headquarters, printed a cookie recipe that had been distributed to the Council’s 2,000 Girl Scouts. The approximate cost of ingredients for six- to seven-dozen cookies was estimated at 26 to 36 cents; the suggested sale price was 25 or 30 cents for a dozen.

In the 20s and 30s the simple sugar cookies baked by Girl Scouts and their mothers were packaged in waxed paper bags, sealed with stickers, and sold door to door.

The Original Girl Scout Cookie Recipe (circa 1922)

1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
Additional sugar for topping (optional)
2 eggs
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder

Cream butter and the cup of sugar; add well-beaten eggs, then milk, vanilla, flour, salt, and baking powder. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour. Roll dough, cut into trefoil shapes, and sprinkle sugar on top, if desired.

Bake in a quick oven (375°) for approximately 8 to 10 minutes or until the edges begin to brown. Makes six- to seven-dozen cookies.

Present Day Girl Scout Cookies

For present day cookie recipes, check out the websites of the two licensed Girl Scout cookie bakers: ABC Bakers and Little Brownie Bakers, and on www.pinterest.com/GSUSA. For a list of specific cookie ingredients go to Meet the Cookies.

If you’ve ever wondered why your cookie may be called Shortbread instead of Trefoil, it’s because the two bakers call them different names. The cookies have a similar look and taste but the name and recipe vary with the baker. Both companies call their chocolate-mint cookie, Thin Mint. I guess you can’t mess with the gold standard!

The cookies, all of which are kosher, are sold by weight, not quantity. The size and number of cookies in the package varies with the baker, but are displayed on every package. The cookies are sold for different prices in different areas of the country with each of the 112 Girl Scout councils setting their own price based on its needs and its familiarity with the local market.

Get 25 easy to use calorie saving tips from the newest issue of my digital magazine. You can download it from iTunes or Google Play.

Will Your Chocolate Bar Keep You Awake?

February 25, 2015 By Penny Klatell, PhD, RN Leave a Comment

Do you hit the chocolate at night, or maybe mid-afternoon? Does your chocolate nibbling follow a chocolate dessert from earlier in the day, or a hot chocolate, or some samples of chocolate candy? And perhaps all of that chocolate indulgence is washed down by a couple (or more) cups of coffee.

It gets to be bedtime and sleep is downright elusive. You wonder why you’re wide awake since you’ve been on the go all day.

Here’s a possibility – your sleeplessness might, in part, be due to all of the caffeine not just in your coffee (or tea) but in your chocolate, too. There isn’t a huge amount of caffeine in chocolate, but perhaps enough – especially if you’re a chocoholic or caffeine sensitive – to help tip the insomnia scales when it’s combined with a day’s worth of other caffeinated food and drinks.

Caffeine and Chocolate

Chocolate – the darker the better – might have some health benefits. But here are a few facts about chocolate that most people don’t know:

Chocolate contains caffeine, not enough to give you a big time boost, but depending on the type of chocolate, enough to register — especially if you’re working your way through some of those oversized bars or you’re stuffing in a bunch of fun-sized bars or chocolate Easter eggs.
Usually, the darker the chocolate, the more caffeine it has. Unsweetened or semi-sweetchocolate has about 5-10mg of caffeine per ounce of chocolate. Milk chocolate generally has 5mg or less of caffeine per ounce.
It would take about 14 regularly sized (1.5 ounce) bars of milk chocolate to give you the same amount of caffeine that you’d get from an 8-ounce cup of coffee. Along with that little caffeine buzz you’d also be shoving in about 3,000 calories and more than 300 grams of sugar. If you’re looking for caffeine, coffee seems like a better bet at about two calories for an 8-ounce cup (black, no sugar).
Dark chocolate has a higher caffeine content than milk chocolate but it would still take four regular sized bars to get the same amount that you’d find in one cup of black coffee.

Something To Think About

If you have trouble sleeping, along with avoiding coffee before bed, you might want to take note of the amount of chocolate you’re eating.

Something else to think about: getting kids (and some adults) to sleep on Halloween, Easter, and other chocolate heavy holidays might have a whole lot to do with both the sugar and the amount of caffeine in all of the chocolate candy.

The Amount of Caffeine in Beverages and Chocolate

Caffeine In Chocolate

Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Bar, 1bar/1.55 ounces: 9 mg caffeine

Hershey’s Special Dark Chocolate Bar, 1 bar/1.45 ounces: 20 mg caffeine

Hershey’s Kisses, 9 pieces: 9 mg caffeine

Hershey’s Special Dark Kisses, 9 pieces: 20 mg caffeine

Scharffen Berger Milk 41% Cacao, ½ bar: 17 mg caffeine

Scharffen Berger Extra Dark 82% Cacao, ½ bar: 42 mg caffeine

Dagoba Milk Chocolate 37% Cacao, ½ bar: 9 mg caffeine

Dagoba Dark Chocolate 73% Cacao, ½ bar: 36 mg caffeine

Caffeine In Coffee

Coffee, generic brewed, 8 ounces: 133 mg caffeine (range: 102-200; 16 ounces, 266 mg caffeine)

Dunkin’ Donuts regular coffee, 16 ounces: 206 mg caffeine

Starbucks Brewed Coffee (Grande), 16 ounces: 320 mg caffeine

Coffee, generic instant, 8 ounces: 93 mg caffeine (range 27-173)

Espresso, generic, 1 ounce: 40 mg caffeine (range 30-90)

Starbucks Espresso, solo, 1 ounce: 75 mg caffeine

Coffee, generic decaffeinated, 8 ounce: 5 mg caffeine (range 3-12)

Caffeine in Non-Coffee Beverages

Tea, brewed, 8 ounces: 40 – 60 mg
Green tea, 8 ounces: 15 mg
Hot cocoa, 8 ounces: 14 mg caffeine
Chocolate Milk, 8 ounces: 5 mg caffeine
Red Bull, 8.2 ounces: 80 mg
Mountain Dew, 12 ounces: 55 mg caffeine
Pepsi-Cola, 12 ounces: 37.5 mg caffeine
Classic Coco Cola, 12 ounces, 34 mg caffeiene
Snapple flavored tea, 12 ounces: 31.5 mg caffeine

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