Make Your own Easter Eggs

It’s so rewarding to make chocolate Easter eggs at home, especially when the results are as good as this. And it’s also a great way to have fun in the kitchen, especially when you can get little ones involved too. Easy to use, our Easter Egg Moulds includes moulds to make 2 large and 36 mini eggs, which will look really professional when presented as gifts.

Anyone receiving a home-made egg in these moulds is sure to appreciate the care and time you’ve put in, but they’re actually surprisingly simple to make – just melt, mould and decorate. Here’s how we made ours…

Easter Egg Decoration

Melt your chocolate (and temper if you want to)

Place your chosen chocolate (we used Guittard’s Chocolate Chips) into a bowl and place over a pan of very hot (but not boiling) water, ensuring the bowl is not in direct contact with the water. Melt slowly, stirring occasionally.

If you want to temper your chocolate to give it a really professional-looking shiny finish – and make it easier to remove your eggs from the moulds –  use a thermometer or our Thermospatula to heat to exactly 55°C. Award-winning British Master Chocolatier Paul A. Young has shared his foolproof method for tempering chocolate.

Mould

Make sure your moulds are clean and free from any dust or water, then pour your (tempered) chocolate into the mini egg moulds and leave to set.
Spoon chocolate into the large moulds, turn upside down and tap until the whole mould is covered with a thin layer of chocolate. Turn the correct way up and leave to set.
Once set, turn out the smaller eggs and stick halves together with melted chocolate, then carefully turn out each large egg mould using a little chocolate around the edges to join the halves together.

Decorate your egg

Mix edible lustre dust with a tiny bit of clear alcohol like vodka or gin, enough to make a liquid – the alcohol will eventually evaporate, leaving behind a lovely ‘paint-splatter’ effect. You can use more than one colour of dust to create really striking combinations – we used silver, gold and blue.
Using a food-safe brush, flick your lustre mixes onto the large egg and smaller eggs, being careful not to touch your eggs before they’re completely dry.

We also dust a few of the mini eggs with a layer of lustre too for some contrasting colours when the big egg cracks open.

Once your eggs are all done and lustre-dusted, fill the large eggs with the mini ones and use a little more melted chocolate to stick the halves together. Leave to set and they’re ready to gift.

Experiment!

If you’ve had a go at melting and tempering and fancy trying your hand at something a little more complicated, why not give ganache a go? Paul A. Young’s easy-to-follow how to make ganache guide is perfect for making mini eggs with a silky-smooth filling.

Super-simple sprinkles

Which came first, the chicken (shaped cutter) or the egg? In this case, definitely the egg! Followed very shortly by the chicken, and the rabbit, and a pot of shimmery sprinkles. If your decorating skills aren’t the greatest, this is a quick and easy – but still impressive – way to finish off your eggs.

What you’ll need

What you do

Gather together your kit, tipping your sprinkles into a bowl so they’re at hand when you want them. Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pan of hot water.

Hold your chosen cutter against the side of your egg and, taking a brush with a little melted chocolate on it, ‘paint’ round the inside to leave an outline on your egg. Fill in the outline with more melted chocolate then quickly sprinkle your sprinkles over the top, before the chocolate sets and is no longer sticky. Leave to dry.

To make the half-covered egg, dip the egg first in melted chocolate and then in the bowl of sprinkles, turning it so it’s evenly covered.

Nest eggs

Fancy a more sophisticated look? This vanilla cheesecake-filled, treasure trove of nested eggs will go down a treat, both in your belly and on Instagram and Pinterest.  You can get creative with all kinds of different sizes and shapes of eggs and sprinkles, but here’s how we made ours.

What you’ll need

For the eggs and decoration

  • Large chocolate egg halves made in our Easter Egg Moulds
  • Additional eggs to go inside – the smaller ones in the extra moulds in our Easter Egg Moulds set, and added some sugar-coated chocolate eggs too.
  • A little extra chocolate, for melting
  • A decorating brush
  • Sprinkles – we used Scrumptious Sprinkles’ Ice Blue 100s and 1000s, with its colourful mix of bunnies, ducks and butterflies, sugar strands and dots.

For the vanilla cheesecake filling

  • 300g full fat soft cheese
  • 50g icing sugar
  • 140ml double cream
  • Few drops vanilla extract or ¼ tsp vanilla bean paste

What you do

First of all, make your large half eggs and the smaller ones to go inside using our moulds – in as many different sizes, shapes and colours as you want. We used a mix of white and milk marbled together for the little handmade eggs, and for the larger patterned egg we brushed a little melted chocolate onto the design before sprinkling the sprinkles over the top.

To make the cheesecake filling, place the cream cheese, icing sugar and vanilla extract or paste in a bowl, then beat with an electric mixer until smooth. Pour in the double cream and carry on beating until the mixture is completely combined. Spoon it into the made up chocolate half-egg and smooth the top down with the back of your spoon. Leave it to set in the fridge for a couple of hours – it doesn’t need to be completely set to add the decoration.

Position your eggs on top, and finish with a scattering of sprinkles.

Just a word of warning – you will have to make and eat these on the same day, as the cheesecake mixture will start to separate if left overnight. So once they’re made, take their pic – then you’ve got the perfect excuse to start scoffing!

Pipe like a professional

Of course, if you really want to wow with your decorating skills, piped designs are a great way to do it, and this pretty springtime scene really isn’t that hard to create. The right kit will help you get results that you can be really proud of, making a lovely gift for a very lucky someone.

What you’ll need

  • A large chocolate egg, made in our Easter Egg Moulds
  • Royal icing, for piping – you can mix up your own, or ‘cheat’ by using ready-made
  • Green food colouring
  • Fine round or plain nozzle and piping bag
  • Fondant icing in pink, pale blue, yellow and black – we used Renshaw Ready-to-Roll Icing
  • Flower icing cutters, like our 4 Daisy Icing Cutters

What you do

Once your large egg is made, and assembled, you might find it easier to rest it back in the mould, so that you’re holding the mould rather than the back of the egg while you decorate it – that way, the warmth from your hands is less likely to melt and smudge the chocolate.

To pipe the grass, mix a little food colouring into royal icing, adding just a drop at a time to get the desired shade of green. Fit a small round piping nozzle into a piping bag, spoon in the icing and pipe on the ‘grass’.  Starting at the end of each blade and piping downwards towards the base of the egg will give you more control. Make some blades longer than others and leave space to add flowers at the end of some stalks.

To make the flowers, roll out fondant icing to 2-3mm thick and use the cutters to create daisies in whatever sizes you like – we used the two smallest in our Daisy Icing Cutter set. ‘Glue’ them onto the egg using a little dab of royal icing, and finish them off with piped white royal icing centres.

Make a bee by sticking little balls of yellow and black icing together and shaping between your fingers to make a rounded oval of icing. Stick to the egg using royal icing. Finish off by piping on wings and a ‘beeline’ using white royal icing – again, use a small round nozzle for this. Leave to set fully – putting it in the fridge will help – before you wrap it up (carefully!) and present it to your lucky Easter egg eater.

Happy chocolate-making, happy chocolate-eating – and Happy Easter!

By | 1 February 2023