It May Have A Subculture, But To Me, Peeps Are Unremarkable Candy.

The Good: Inexpensive enough
The Bad: Low on taste, Seasonal availability makes people think they're something great, Lack of nutritional value.
The Basics: Peeps are a pretty average sweet, but as far as candy goes, I tend to want something a little more flavorful.


The day has finally come! As many of my loyal readers know, in addition to writing new reviews, this month I have been tagging all of my old posts (75% done!) and making more of a push to get reviews off the site I used to write for off. In removing my classic reviews, I have made an effort to apply them in my cache in an order so as to balance the types of reviews appearing in the blog. Today, with this review, I have exhausted the niche I call "random food" reviews and so there will be a whole bunch of brand spankin' new reviews to look forward to of food in the next few days, months, weeks and from now on. I am very excited about that and I hope to keep getting new readers based on the idea that I am a writer with taste and I can help you pick foods, snacks and restaurants that are worth spending your hard earned money on or at!

So, I thought I'd start the bevy of new food reviews off by annoying people with a review of the seasonally-available Peeps candy. Peeps candies are usually only available for Easter, but because I am surrounded by people who love the things, I have a small stockpile for giftgiving and tonight my wife is sharing the latest batch I gave her. The truth is, I just don't get them. Peeps are all right, but nothing extraordinary as far as I can tell.

Basics

Peeps are a marshmallow candy that is usually available only around the Easter season. In recent years, to raise their profit margin and compete for other holidays, specialized Peeps have been released for Valentine's Day, Halloween and Christmas. But from Valentine's Day through the end of the Easter season, Peeps are usually widely available from anywhere from $.99 - $1.99 for a five-chick pack of Peeps.

Each Peep is almost two inches long by 3/4" wide by 3/4" tall and they are sugar-coated marshmallow candies. The sugar coating comes in different colors and they tend to be bright colors like yellow, pink, blue, and green. They come in packs of five and the little chicken-shaped peeps come in a thin cardboard tray wrapped in plastic.

Ease Of Preparation

Peeps are pretty simple to prepare. Simply unwrap the plastic on the cardboard tray and pull apart the marshmallow Peeps. It's that easy. More often than not, the tray gets filled with sugar from the Peeps that falls off in transit. Simply breaking up the Peeps and eating them is all the prep this candy requires.

Taste

Here's where my reviewing prowess is supposed to pay off and on Peeps this is where I am going to fall down. Peeps taste like what they are: crystallized sugar on marshmallow. The shape doesn't matter, these taste dry and sugary. These are pretty generically sweet, but have no real flavor other than marshmallow. The sugar coating makes them a little sweeter than other marshmallows and that cuts the dryness a little bit.

Nutrition

Peeps are hardly a bastion of good health, but that's to be be expected with candy. The five Peeps in a tray are a single serving. A serving has 140 calories, none of which are from fat. There is 15 mg of sodium and only 1 gram of protein. There are no vitamins or other nutritional benefits to Peeps.

This is, of course, to be expected considering Peeps are a candy. As a candy, it is equally unsurprising given the main ingredients are sugar, corn syrup and gelatin. Peeps are gluten free and are not Vegan compliant considering there is gelatin in them as well as carnuba wax. There is nothing overly unfamiliar in the ingredient list, so these are not the worst candies ever.

Storage/Clean-Up

Peeps are easy enough to store. The Peeps I bought for my wife last Easter has an expiration date of December 2012, so keeping them at room temperature or below seems to keep them fresh for a long period of time.

Clean-up is as easy as wiping up the sugar that falls off them. So long as the Peep does not melt onto anything, clean-up is that easy. Like the preparation, there is nothing hard about storing or cleaning up after this candy.

Overall

Peeps are all right, but the standard ones do not have real flavor and are not worth recommending.

For other seasonally-available candies, please check out my reviews of:
Cadbury Creme Eggs
Ghirardelli Milk & Pumpkin Spice Caramel chocolate squares
Lindt Holiday Spice truffles


4/10

For other food reviews, please visit my index page on the subject by clicking here!

© 2011 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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