What Easter Eggs?

I’m a foodblogger with good intentions. Plenty of good intentions, and since last Wednesday I’ve been tormented by my homemade Easter Eggs.

Walking through our large Tesco that morning I found some silicone egg moulds for the bargain price of €2.50.  I then discovered their own brand “finest” selection chocolate was half price.  Deal done. I stocked up on enough chocolate to make the eggs and 1 egg mould, brought them home and planned how I was going to make the eggs.

That night during the night feeds I thought over how to make the details on the eggs, decided that a seldom used syringe from the baby’s pain relief would come in handy, and obsessed about tempering chocolate.  Thursday morning came around and I started melting the chocolate in a glass bowl over a saucepan. Filled up the syringe and started filling in the details on the silicone moulds with white chocolate. My first mistake. The high fat content in the chocolate meant that it didn’t melt the way I thought it would.  It would only become liquid when stirred and it made it nigh impossible to fill the syringe with the chocolate.

Once the details were filled the mould went into the fridge to chill and I started melting the high cocoa content chocolate (75% if you’re interested) and kept the temperature low in order to temper it, or to keep it at a cracking point so I could have a high glossy finish on my egg.  Mistake number two. As I layered up the chocolate and wore a groove in the kitchen floor walking between the fridge and the basin if melted chocolate I began to realise that because I had tempered the chocolate it wouldn’t layer in the way I wanted it to. So it was no surprise to me at all that they cracked into pieces when I took them from the mould. The children on the other hand were delighted with the free chocolate they were getting to eat.  You can see my thumbprint on this one as the chocolate was so fragile and by now I was sweating a lot.

I eventually managed to salavage one full egg after 3 hours of messing around with melted chocolate, a teething and cranky 5 month old, a 3 year old who wanted to dip his finger in the melted chocolate and a super heated kitchen from a south facing window.

At which point I filled it with jellies, wrapped it in a gift bag, tied it with a bow and took a picture on my hot kitchen table. Just as well, because the egg disintegrated shortly afterwards in the heat. So much for taking photographs of my work.

I then decided it would be intelligent to fill the moulds to the top the tempered chocolate and put some salt crystals in the base of the mould before pouring layers of chocolate in.  I was desperate at this stage. I may have sworn a bit. When cooled I got them all from the mould and they looked pretty alright. Hah!

What I underestimated was the sheer weight of this solid chocolate egg.  Remember when you were a child and you lamented the fact that your Easter Egg was hollow and you heard urban myths about that ONE egg that slipped through quality control and was solid the whole way through? Well that, only heavier.  The 3 year old picked it up and said I use it as a brick. He’s a great critic. Hubby came home from a training day and nearly broke his teeth trying to chomp through it, he’s my quality control. He suggested I use it as a weight to hold the lid of the bin down. I offered to imprint it on his head and he left the room, suitably chastened. Not that I ever would, just at that point I was so frustrated at my efforts that I was fairly purple in the face.

The following morning himself took the 3 year old to work with him before he singlehandedly cleared my chocolate stash. I set to making a cupcake mixture to fill the silicone moulds. Baked them and then turned them out. When I discovered my mistake number three. No cake release/oiling of the silicone mould. After much scrubbing I rectified this by spraying the moulds liberally and then cooking the mixture to within an inch of its life.

Once cool the cakes released from the mould easily. I trimmed the tops, scooped out the centres and left them to cool some more. I then coated them with more melted chocolate, and filled with peppermint buttercream. However by this stage I had all but given up on eating my own Easter Eggs so I sent them to my sister’s house so she could share them with some guests after taking a quick picture.

Plenty of good intentions. A dreadful blogpost and to be honest I’m not going to share this particular recipe with you because it didn’t work. Ah well. Next year I’ll break out the moulds again and I’ll know egg-zactly how to do them because my pal Lisa over at mama.ie did a splendid job with her 2 year old. See a child can do it, I can’t!