April 2, 2010
Why Are Chocolate Easter Bunnies Hollow?
Don't eat me! Image courtesy of Vstock LLC / Photolibrary
A colleague recently posed a thought-provoking question: why are so many chocolate Easter bunnies hollow? Isn’t it cruel to disappoint all those little kids, who will bite into what looks like a massive chunk of chocolate and be confronted with emptiness?
The experience inspires a host of sermons and metaphors about how life is full of disappointments, why you shouldn’t judge by appearances, and so on. Chocolate bunnies can be, as this New York Times article puts it, “the child’s first taste of deception.”
Courtesy Flickr user Phil Scoville
Are candy makers conspiring to teach us a lesson?
Of course not. The answer is simple, according to one chocolate maker: hollow bunnies are easier to eat.
“If you had a larger-size bunny and it was solid chocolate, it would be like a brick; you’d be breaking teeth,” says Mark Schlott, vice-president of operations at R.M. Palmer in Reading, Pennsylvania, one of the first and largest manufacturers of hollow chocolate bunnies.
And, of course, hollow is usually cheaper to make, though Schlott phrases it more delicately: “Hollow has a greater perceived value. It creates a much greater chocolate footprint than solid.”
The company now makes about 25 million hollow chocolate bunnies each year, as well as smaller solid bunnies, cream eggs and other seasonally-themed candies. Schlott says sales increased during the recession.
“Instead of going on a spring vacation, I think more people stayed at home; they wanted that traditional Easter basket on Easter morning,” he guesses. “People are really going back to their roots.”
The tradition of chocolate Easter bunnies dates back to 19th-century America, which borrowed it—and the Easter Bunny in general—from Germany. Sales started to take off around 1890, after a Pennsylvania man named Robert L. Strohecker featured a 5-foot-tall chocolate rabbit in his drugstore as an Easter promotion. (Of course, that’s got nothing on the record-setting chocolate rabbit sculptors just completed in a South African shopping mall.)
By the turn of the 20th century, newspapers noticed “the growing popularity in the States of the chocolate rabbit” among Easter confections, and by 1925, a catalog from the R.E. Rodda Candy Co. featured guitar-playing bunnies, suggesting that perhaps ordinary chocolate bunnies were old hat by then.
Hollow molds had entered the picture by 1939, when a newspaper advertisement mentions “hollow chocolate rabbits” sold for five cents each. The bunny business hit a snag in late 1942, when the War Production Board halted the manufacture of all such chocolate novelties, reasoning that cocoa rations should be saved for “staple civilian and military purposes, such as breakfast cocoa and candy bars.” (Ah, yes, the staples of life.)
After World War II, chocolate Easter bunnies returned to the States—as did a soldier named Richard Palmer, in search of an “interesting and novel” business, as Schlott tells it. Palmer founded his chocolate company in 1948, and was soon making a hollow Easter bunny named “Baby Binks” which, oddly enough, was inspired by a dog toy.
“Apparently, his dog at the time had a little bunny rabbit toy, and he looked at the shape and thought, ‘You know, that has kind of a whimsical personality; I could make a chocolate mold like that,’” Schlott says. “So he did, and it’s still in our line today.”
So if you find a hollow chocolate bunny in your basket this Easter, try not to feel disappointed (or scream in horror, if you’re a sci-fi fan). If you really want something in the center, well…you could try the candy version of turducken. (Okay, now you can scream in horror.)
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goood stuff
awesome
[...] rabbit as you would chicken, though I think it makes more sense to do the opposite. That said, chocolate bunnies will suit me just [...]
I always wondered why it was hollow?
I concur with the mention of emptiness being a metaphor for disappointment as mentioned in the article.
The cynic in me – reinforced by living in the “Kingdom of Chocolate” (Switzerland)for 50 years – suspects that the “hollowness” of chocolate bunnies for children indeed serves as a “metaphor” for the emptiness that often confronts them as they become adults. Of course the other factors may play a role, but the psychology is too delicious to melt away!
Essentially, the “Bunnies” are saying “get used to it”!
Obviously, making hollow chocolate bunnies saves money for the chocolate companies. They can make bigger bunnies which weigh less. Notice that the first hollow molds were from about 1939 at the tail end of the depression. You can still get solid bunnies they just cost more or are smaller.
I loved the information and all the fun links. Thank you.
a dear family friend of my grandmothers always got us these HUGE solid chocolate bunnies for Easter. ( the ones carrying wicker baskets and eggs on his back). Uncle Joe. got them in either Ridgewood or Glendale, Queens NY a very large German residential area at the time. Needless to say our family is German as was he. We’d also find the sugar eggs with the Easter scenes inside and jelly beans. We also loved the chocolate covered marshamallow bunnies that we froze and ate hard. LOL none of that gooey stuff for us..lol
“Greater chocolate footprint…” Hmm. Market speak (b.s.) even for chocolate bunnies. I don’t have a particular problem with hollow bunnies, but you can still buy them solid if that’s what you’re looking for. My mom, rest her soul, gave me a solid chocolate bunny every year of my life, even after I was 50! Happy Easter all!
Thank you.
Why do we accept the charge that hollow chocolate bunnies are somehow a way to ‘cheat’ the buyer? Aren’t they priced at least roughly according to weight? Actually I think a slightly higher price/cost ratio is justified, as they are a lot more fun to eat than a solid chunk of chocolate.
I LOVE hollow chocolate bunnies and look forward to Easter each year. Palmer is my very favorite brand of Easter bunny. Nothing satisfies like biting into the ears and proceeding to take him a part a little at a time until all is gone. So disappointed I couldn’t fine the Professor and the large 2 foot bunny this year!!
I actually had the experience of biting off a piece of a Bakers chocolate bar when baking a Germans Chocolate Cake and breaking a tooth–crown cost (in those days) about $700–also who’s kid needs to eat a half a pound of chocolate in a sitting?
I think it’s great training for the young kids to bite into something and find out the inside is empty!
That way when they grow up and buy some stock in a company they are not as shocked to find out there is nothing inside. It’s just a facade.. kinda like Enron.
Or like a Hollywood movie set or an insurance policy that excludes substance for what you really need and expect.
It’s simply good training for the kids! :-)
Turducken? seriously? Now if you can make a hollow chocolate pinnata type bunny THAT would be COOL!!!
Hollow chocolate bunnies rate right up there with kissing your sister. I think it’s a dirty trick to play on the kids. It’s been 50 years since I was a kid, and both my wife and daughter would never give Dad a hollow bunny. The most fun is biting off the ears, and it just isn’t the same if they are hollow.
When I first had a solid chocolate Easter bunny, I was disappointed that it didn’t taste as good (to me) as the Palmer hollow ones. I agree, though, that eating the (solid) ears was one of the best parts. I like hollow chocolate bunnies still (and it’s been a LONG time since I got one in my Easter basket).
I remember vividly getting a chocolate bunny in my Easter basket when I was about 7 years old. I always had a soft spot for animals and could not bring myself to bite off an ear or any other appendage. I was sure I would be deemed a murderer for ever more. I tucked him in a draw and didn’t know quite what to do with him. I would check periodically to be sure he was still there. By July, he was being devoured by worms. My efforts to save him were in vain.
The year prior to that I had found to my dismay, a professionally stuffed (by a taxidermist) baby duck in my Easter basket. I cried for days, traumatized by the brutal acts of the Easter Bunny.
When I was 9,I read Animal Farm , by George Orwell and developed a deep awareness for animal cruelty. I have been a strict vegetarian for 35 years.
Now when I see a child bite the head off that cute bunny or the marshmallow peep, it immediately reminds me of the day my daughter’s boyfriend bit the head off a live bullfrog.
Your article is interesting and entertaining and brought back fond memories.
can you tell me why palmer can’t make a peanut free chocolate easter bunny? It always takes me weeks to find a good chocolate easter bunny for my kids who are very allergic to peanuts.
Well, I guess I’ve never been disappointed at least with chocolate bunnies. My mom still buys me a solid Chocolate bunny for Easter and I am 50! Go figure? Well, of course my taste has changed somewhat, out with the Milk chocolate and it’s been Dark chocolate Baby! the last few years. Lindt last year and I think I got a solid Dark chocolate Godiva Bunny this year!!!! Hey but it’s really about our lord Jesus Christ anyways. This is the most important thing isn’t it so?
Happy Easter all, and God Bless all!
I always thought it was so you could fill it with milk once you bit the ears off! At least, that is the tradition in my family.
Because it makes it easier to bite off the head and leave the decapitated body in an obscure place (like I did this morning)…….
I just miss the toy that used to come inside. Usually a metallic cricket noise maker shaped as different animals or amphibians. I’m surprised no one had mentioned it, am i that old?
My parents always gave us a sold chocolate Easter bunny (usually Russell Stover). I consider a hollow one to be cheap, especially the Palmer chocolate-flavored ones. If I want chocolate,give me Belgian,Dove,Ghiradelli or Russell Stover! Palmer chocolate isn’t chocolate!
When I was a little girl my aunt gave me a solid chocolate bunny (about 14″ tall)and he had the wicker basket on his back with jelly beans on top of the basket. I had no trouble demolishing it! And, yes, Sharyn, my aunt lived in Queens(South Ozone Park, to be exact, across from Baisley Park) Years later we had a big dog, combo Irish Setter/Doberman, who ate a solid chocolate bunny, a little smaller he got out of a cabinet. No problem, later he gulped down a pound of butter he swiped off the table!!
It’s simply because a chocolate bunny doesn’t eat :P http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photos-easter-bunny-rimage1964508-resi239750 :)
I MUCH prefer solid chocolate. If the product doesn’t specify that it is solid chocolate, I will not purchase it. And after 40 years, I’ve never broken a tooth.
I was expecting them to say “it’s not hollow, its filled with the holy spirt.”
Edit: holy spirit. sorry.