how peeps are made!

As I scour the Chicago Tribune in eager anticipation of its annual Peeps on Parade Diorama Contest, I found photo slideshow about how these marshmallow treats are produced! The Pennsylvania factory is called Just Born, and offers a virtal tour online.

Apparently, Peeps have an official site with "fan club information, fun facts, history, recipes and crafts" and more.... Seriously... You can find facts like:

• In the early 1950s, it took 27 HOURS to make one finished Peep. Today it takes 6 minutes.
• Each Peep has only 32 calories and 0 grams of fat.

Wow, until I started procrastinating by putting "Peeps" in Google, I had no idea how much randomness these candies have inspired. Some of the craziest?

A site dedicated to the Peeps research ...
A Washington D.C. Peep Artist ...
Obama in Peeps? (gross) ...
A marshmallow recipe from HowStuffWorks
A video of three Peeps in a microwave ... (want to learn why they do this?)

... Argh! I gotta go do something productive....