These homemade Easter chocolates are the perfect gift to bring to family and friends over the Easter period, and a great activity to do with children too!
Along with Christmas, Easter has always been a big celebration for me. In Italy, it seems like Easter is a much bigger affair than it is generally here in the UK, and we tend to gather with family and friends and have a big meal, often including roast lamb, and Colomba (basically, Easter's version of a Panettone). But of course, the star of the show, especially as a kid, was always the chocolate, which my family and I used to eat with warm bread, making a chocolate sandwich, for breakfast.
Nowadays, I spend a lot of weekends in the lead up to Easter having small gathering with friends, especially my expat friends, to celebrate and catch up before the big event, as we will mostly spend it with out families. So, in search for something different to bring as a gift to my hosts, I came up with the idea of making some Easter chocolates. I went for two different kinds here: Mini Egg and dark chocolate, and Oreo and white chocolate. They were surprisingly easy to make, but they definitely look much more complicated. Since trying them out about a month ago, I have made these another three times, and they have always gone down very well with friends and colleagues. They are so simple to make, I think they would be a great activity to do with your children, over the Easter break.
Top Tips to Make These Easter Chocolates
Use a Silicone Mould: Silicone moulds are much better than plastic ones, as the lack of rigidity will help make sure your chocolates don't break when you pop them out once they have set. I got mine from The Works, but there are tons of them on Amazon to choose from.
Have Fun with the Flavours: I went for two different chocolate flavours - Oreo & white chocolate and Mini Egg & dark chocolate. But you can make it your own! Good options include milk chocolate and puffed rice, or milk chocolate and smarties. Dark chocolate and nuts could also work a treat, but essentially, the world is your oyster.
Don't Burn Your Chocolate: When melting the chocolate over a saucepan filled with simmering water, make sure you remove the chocolate from the heat when it's almost fully melted, but not completely. Then keep mixing with a spoon until it finishes melting. Doing this will prevent your chocolate from burning, which would mean you'd have to start from scratch all over again. Burnt chocolate cannot be salvaged.
Ingredients (makes around 22 chocolates)
For the dark chocolate & Mini Egg chocolates:
250 gr baking dark chocolate
60 gr Mini Eggs
For the white chocolate & Oreo chocolates:
250 gr white chocolate
4/5 Oreos
Method:
Chop the dark chocolate into small chunks, then add them to a heat-safe bowl. Add water to a small saucepan and bring to a boil, then lower the heat and bring to a simmer. Place the bowl on top of the saucepan and melt the chocolate. When your chocolate is almost fully melted, remove the bowl from the saucepan and mix with a spoon until the chocolate is completely melted. Leave on the side to cool for a few minutes.
Repeat the same process with your white chocolate in a clean bowl.
Chop your Mini Eggs and Oreos as finely as you can.
Add the chopped Mini Eggs to the melted dark chocolate and the Oreos to the melted white chocolate. Mix until fully combined.
Get your moulds out and fill them with the chocolate mixture (I would recommend using a teaspoon to reduce the inevitable mess). You can then leave the chocolate to set at room temperature (this will require several hours), or simply pop them into the fridge for 1 hour or so, until fully set.
Once the chocolates are set, delicately pop them out of the mould, and transfer them onto a plate or air-tight container.
These chocolates can be kept in an air-tight container for up to 5 days, but I doubt they could ever last that long!
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