Half Homemade Easter Eggs

I like to make things for Easter - not that I don't love a Lindt bunny to hop into my life on Easter Sunday - as I find most of the shop eggs either boring and/or not very tasty. Unfortunately I've been a bit short on time lately (you may have noticed my erratic posts, sorry!) and making eggs from scratch seemed to be asking for trouble. So I worked out a cheaty way to jazz up bought eggs.

There are two variations - I was experimenting! - and I'm yet to taste/experience test either of them, but surely they can't go far wrong. ;-) 

Type 1 is filled with lollies - jet planes, maltesers, pebbles, mini eggs - or whatever you feel like. I sort of did this last year, only went all out and made my own eggs - but it was hugely time consuming. This time around I bought large eggs from the supermarket, as well as a big stash of candy, to take the pain out of it.

To get the lollies inside the egg you'll need a small serrated knife with a sharp tip. I found that gentle pressing would get the knife through the shell (if it doesn't work try a different spot as even the store-bought eggs have thick and thin bits and you might just be trying to cut through a thick part), and then a sawing motion started would work for a little bit. The egg inevitably cracks before you get a nice neat porthole but though the piece that breaks off will be irregular you should still be able to easily glue it back in afterwards.

Then the fun part - stuff in as many lollies (or whatever else you want - who said it had to be food hiding inside?) as you can. To glue the chocolate back on you either need to carefully apply heat to the edges of the lid or melt some extra chocolate separately and apply a small amount to the edges - and then just place it carefully back on the rest of the egg. I used my brulee torch (actually a bit too hot - a hairdryer with something to funnel the heat would do). Easy peasy! If you are careful with the foil when you open it you can rewrap it and fool your recipient into thinking it's a really boring hollow egg - or you could wrap it yourself for added pizazz. 

Type 2 is my take on the marshmallow eggs that are prolific at this time of year. I do like them but the chocolate is too thin and isn't really chocolate anyway. Sooo... Same general principle, store-bought eggs, carefully incised, but this time filled with marshmallow and caramel. Once again I went for the completely lazy option, and bought both marshmallows and caramel.

I melted the marshmallows in a saucepan over a low heat (stir often or the bottom will burn!) - a double burner would also be effective and you probably wouldn't have to watch so closely.

When the marshmallow was in a liquid state (and you could equally do this with your own marshmallow) I scooped it into a piping bag (warning! You will get sticky!) and piped it into the eggs. The astute among you may already be wondering "but won't that melt the chocolate?" Well, the answer is yes, Sort of. Some eggs more than others. My recommendation is to prepare a big bowl or tray of ice, loosely cover with gladwrap and rest the eggs on that before filling. This should keep the chocolate nice and cool and hopefully intact. Don't try to move them for a little while afterwards, either, to allow them to firm up should there be any soft spots.  

To give the eggs a caramelly yolk I initially only piped them about two thirds full of marshmallow, then squirted some caramel in, followed by a little more marshmallow to fill them up. I found that just placing the lids back on these eggs was enough to seal them - the marshmallow holds the broken bit in place well enough.

Leave them to cool and firm up for a few hours, then wrap them up again and voila! Surprise eggs! As you can see from the photo above right a few of mine did get a bit too squishy. Wrapping them gently up in the foil brought most of them back to being roughly the right shape, and the sticky marshmallow filling held together any bits that were a bit structurally compromised. And they will still taste just as good.

I can get away with posting this as all my egg recipients are safely without internet for the weekend. Convenient!

How do you do Easter eggs? Store-bought, homemade or a mixture?