Easter Candy Showdown: Peeps vs. Bunnies

Welcome to a showdown of miniature proportions, where fluffy sugar-coated marshmallows face off for the Peeps Lightweight Title! With Easter fast approaching, its time to look at the two major contenders for the ultimate marshmallow candy in this year's Easter Candy Showdown.

Those two contenders are the classic "Peeps" marshmallow chicks and the newer-age "Peeps" marshmallow bunnies. I'll be scoring them on a host of categories, from taste to bang for your buck. But rather than simply have them face off in the ring of my opinion, they'll be taking each other on with tiny lightsaber toothpicks! Thanks to these wonderful illustrations, you'll know which animal caricature has the last peep in this match.

Color While you can have both bunnies and chicks in any unnatural hue your tinted tongue desires, Peeps are most common in yellow. That's closer to the tint of a real-life chick, and it's more flattering on them. Chicks win!




Flavor Each color tastes slightly different thanks to the natural variation in food coloring flavor. Chicks and bunnies can be had in any bizarre hue, so that zesty orange can be had on any animal. Draw.




Texture Chicks have a slightly low surface-to-mallow ratio, leaving them with a little too much white fluff and much too little sugar granule coating. Bunnies have that ratio down much better, distancing them from simply being a multi-season marshmallow. Plus, there's nothing as satisfying as biting the ears off a candy bunny during the Easter season. Bunnies win!

Bang for your buck A pack of chicks is stuffed with five peeps and brags a 1 1/2 oz. net weight. A pack of bunnies carries four rabbits and only 1 1/8 ounces. Since the packs typically cost the same, under $1, it's pretty simple. Chicks win!



Cuteness I've always thought chicks look a bit odd, like they just got smacked in the back of the head and their eyes are still rolling around. Bunnies, on the other hand, are just plain adorable. Bunnies win!




Exclusivity It's a little harder to find bunnies -- normally a bad thing in the candy world. But surplus peeps become leftovers that linger on shelves for weeks, growing stale and hard and making you wish you'd never bought them. Bunnies win!



Originality We all know bunnies are just an attempt to spin off the Peeps brand. And while they're better than the Halloween or Christmas impostor Peeps, they still don't hold up to the original in the category. Chicks win!



And we're tied after seven rounds at a score of 3-3 with one draw! That means we go down to the tiebreaker, intangibles:


Intangibles Which would you rather have in your Easter basket, a chocolate bunny surrounded by little marshmallow bunnies or the variety of a chocolate bunny and some chicks? Unfortunately for bunnies, marshmallow chicks are just a more traditional pillar of Easter candy. Bunnies are crowded out by their chocolate brethren. Chicks win!

Congratulations to Chicks, the winner of the 2009 Easter Candy Showdown!