In the Tarter household, the Easter season means three things: 1) Easter Sunday Mass, 2) dressing up my golden doodle Billie in rabbit ears, and 3) Reese’s. 

Above Cadbury Creme Eggs and Peeps, Reese’s eggs (the equivalent of a classic Reese’s peanut butter in egg shape) are the crème de la crème of Easter candy. For some reason unbeknownst to me, these egg-shaped delicacies taste better to me than the standard Peanut Butter Cups. Maybe it's the excess peanut butter and the thinner, melt-in-your-mouth consistency of the chocolate shell, but I consume more of these eggs in a month than I do PB Cups in a whole year. 

But this year, as I was checking out with my Reese’s egg in hand, I saw two new easter-themed creations on the shelf: a Reese’s peanut butter crème egg—a much smaller egg candy with a new peanut butter filling and a harder, thicker candy shell—and the brand new Reese’s Cup with marshmallow topping.

Naturally, I was intrigued by these new flavors and perplexed as to why Reese’s would compete with themselves and try to out-do their best product. So, for a dollar each, I bought these new creations, took them home, and ate and compared each candy in one sitting.

You can probably guess what my number one slot will be, but for those of you who need a guide to what Reese’s to get this Easter, my ranking goes as such. From worst to best, we have:

3: The Reese’s Peanut Butter Crème Egg

2: The Reese’s Marshmallow Topping Cup

1: The Reese’s Peanut Butter Egg

The Crème Egg wasn’t bad, per say, but boy was it misleading. If you figure the width of the candy is 1.5 inches, and the layer of chocolate is a half inch each, you get a very slim amount of peanut butter per bite and an overwhelming amount of chocolate. Not only that, but the chocolate shell was a little hard to bite down on and swallow, as it really gets compacted into your teeth. Lastly, the biggest disappointment of this candy was the peanut butter itself. Not only was there not enough of it, but it was incorrectly labeled. It was essentially the standard peanut butter you get in any Reese’s, and was not any different in consistency or taste, which one would expect when it is labeled as “peanut butter crème.”

As for the “Marshmallow Topping,” I was actually pleasantly surprised with how this candy ended up tasting. I am a pretty big fan of marshmallows, so the fact that this Reese’s cup in particular tasted like peanut butter s’mores was quite appealing. Since it was marshmallow flavor in chocolate form, it tasted a bit fake and processed and a little too similar to white chocolate, but I’ll let that slide for giving us something new and different. Ultimately, the main complaints I had with this candy were the consistency and the overabundance of chocolate. The marshmallow flavor in combination with the compressed chocolate shell sadly outweighs the peanut butter, to the point where there is only a subtle hint of that gooey goodness in the center. Unlike the crème egg, however, eating this candy was more fun and easy, and it simply tasted better, as it had a more unique flavor than the overwhelming amount of chocolate from the former.

Lastly, as you all expected, the classic Reese’s Egg came in first, and no, before you jump to conclusions, it was not simply nostalgia that put this candy in first place, but rather the way that this candy perfectly embodies the marriage between chocolate and peanut butter. Like I said earlier, the Egg is much larger than the Cup, and therefore has more peanut butter than your standard Reese’s candy. Furthermore, the chocolate shell is much thinner, softer, and ultimately better than the classic cup. Chocolate can be rather overwhelming, so having a much thinner layer of it in combination with the large amount of peanut butter makes for the perfect Reese’s. Every bite tastes the same—a perfect mix of chocolate and peanut butter, with neither one outweighing or overshadowing the other’s flavor—and that is what you want in a Reese’s. Instead of having to put up with the excess of chocolate on the edges and not-enough peanut butter in the center, you get an easy-to-eat and flavorful candy that is well worth the calories.

So, if you’re looking for candy to put in your kids' or another loved ones' basket this Easter, look no further than what Reese’s is offering this year, and take my word for it, you can’t go wrong with any Reese’s product (unless it's the absurdly large Caramel filled bunny which my dog stole and ate in its entirety and got sick on, but that’s a story for another time).