People assume that making Easter eggs is quite a complicated task, and rightly so! It can be. Mark my words, since they are based on my own epic fail. But this story has a happy ending… after bringing in the experts. Get ready for story time and tips for chocolate egg success.
It was one of those Sundays when there’s nothing fun to do and I decided to try out a recipe for chocolate Easter eggs given that the inflation of the last 2 years makes buying an Easter egg more expensive than making one at home. And also, chocolate. So I thought: why not?
As I suspected, it was fun! (Cleaning, on the other hand, not so much). And it turned out pretty decently flavor-wise, but since I didn’t have any tips on how to handle the chocolate and prevent it from breaking, instead of an egg, I ended up with so many chocolate pieces I was better positioned to make a bird’s nest than an egg.
That’s when I decided to call up my amazing friend Candela Cortés, who is a chocolatier and a professional pastry chef, to get the best tips on how to make a chocolate Easter egg. She gave me incredible tips, saving me from a chocolate catastrophe during Easter Sunday with all my little cousins going on a “chocolate chunk” instead of an Easter Egg hunt.
Here we go!
Easter Egg recipe and tips
Ingredients for 6 eggs medium size
- Chocolate of choice: 2.20 lb (1 kg)
Directions
Step 1: Find a mold for your Easter eggs. Our guest baker Candela recommends they should be between 3.5 and 5 inches (10 to 13 cm).
And make sure to follow this tip (you’ll thank us later!): wet a napkin with ethyl alcohol and clean the molds with it. Wait until it dries to. You’ll not only disinfect them, but the chocolate will come off more quickly and be extra shiny!
Step 2: Put the chocolate to melt in a bowl with boiling water underneath, following the Bain-marie technique (in Spanish, Baño María). You can also use the microwave, melting the chocolate in 30-second batches, stirring at each interval.
Step 3: Place the melted chocolate in the mold with a silicone kitchen brush. Once the first layer is done, leave it in the fridge for about 5 minutes. This process needs to be repeated 3 more times.
Another amazing tip from our guest chocolatier: Don’t rush the process by freezing the layers, the chocolate could crack (and we don’t want that).
Step 4: Once you have the two halfs, grab a smooth baking sheet and leave it to warm up on the stove. Once it’s warm enough, take the edges of your egg halves and let them slightly melt. The final step is to join them together. You can even out the melted chocolate edges with your finger or a spoon, whatever is easier for you!
Careful! If you want to fill your Easter Egg with sprinkles, candies, chocolates or toys, be sure to introduce them before joining the egg halves together.
Step 5: You can decorate the edge of the Easter Egg with an icing and a pastry bag, then wrap it in a plastic bag and eat it on Easter Day. If you are going to eat it right away or the next day, you can decorate it with a chocolate ganache and store it in the fridge!
Now that you have the recipe and all the tips to get the perfect Chocolate Easter Egg, you must be wondering…
Where does this tradition come from?
Since the early days of humanity, the egg has been considered a symbol of fertility, hope and rebirth. The egg first became important in Egyptian mythology, where the phoenix burned up in its nest and was later reborn from the egg where it first came from.
Knowing this, Christians gave the egg a strong meaning: it was the symbol of the resurrection of Jesus. In the Middle Ages, when Easter arrived, chicken or duck eggs were painted with many colors and were considered expensive and valuable objects (just like now, am I right?).
There’s another theory: during Lent, Christians need to abstain from eating meat and eggs as a way to stay away from sin and be closer to God. It is believed that since the 13th century, Christians used to store and paint the eggs with liquid wax to keep them fresh until they could be consumed again.
Whatever theory you wish to believe, there is one certainty: over time, the tradition of celebrating Easter by giving away decorated eggs was carried on.
What about the Easter bunny?
We can’t forget about the Easter Bunny! We are so used to seeing this figure in many illustrations as the one in charge of bringing Easter eggs but…did you ever wonder why?
Although the origins of the Easter Bunny are a bit blurry, the choice of the rabbit as a symbol to celebrate Easter might be connected to its great ability to procreate, which has a strong value in a tradition dedicated to the fertility of the Earth after the winter. It has its origin in Germanic culture, which gave the Easter Bunny the meaning we know today.
According to a Christian legend, the Bunny witnessed Jesus rising from his own grave. For that reason, he is responsible for bringing good news and he leaves colored eggs to remind children that they should be happy because Jesus resurrected.
The beginning of Easter eggs as we know them: made of chocolate!
In Germany, Italy and France, during the 19th century, the first chocolate eggs with small gifts inside appeared.
Of course each culture has been decorating eggs differently. In the beginning, they were hand-painted in bright colors (which generally represented sunlight).
Currently in some European countries, such as Italy, on Ramos’ Sunday many families bring their decorated eggs to church to bless them and consume them on Easter Sunday.
In the United States churches, children go on a search for Easter eggs with sweets inside, representing the joy of Jesus’ resurrection.
Latin America is a mix of both American and European cultures, since the celebration is fun and filled with chocolate.
And now that you have the best secrets on how to make them yourself, so will yours!
