Bron's Homemade Easter Eggs

 It's Easter time!! Time to eat lots of chocolates and spend time with the family. However after several years of receiving the same sort of egg, I thought to experiment making my own.  It's fun, simple, allows you to be creative and who wouldn't adore receiving a homemade egg?
One huge advantage of making your own is that you can fill them with whatever you want, for example chocolate truffles, sweets, or gifts like jewellery and romantic love notes ;)

This is an example of making a medium sized marbled egg. Half the egg is white, and half is milk chocolate to show some different effects :)

Chocolate tempering is a great technique to learn, and I use it here for the eggs. Usually chocolate thermometers are used, but I have found I can get a good temper by using the simple recipe below (without a thermometer).

Ingredients:
For the milk chocolate half:
100g milk chocolate
30g white chocolate
For the white chocolate half:
100g white chocolate
red gel food colouring
To assemble:
30g white or milk chocolate


Method:

1. Melt 2/3 of the chocolate in a wide bowl/plate in a microwave on high for 30 second bursts. Be very careful as the chocolate can burn easily. After each burst stir, until most of the chocolate has melted.
   
2. Break the other 1/3 of the chocolate into chunks, and add to the bowl, one chunk at a time, and stir well until all the chocolate has melted.
   What you are accomplishing here is a process known as tempering. This is a technique used by professional chocolatiers to improve the stability and texture of the chocolate, and is well worth the effort!
   
3. To test if the chocolate has tempered, spread a small amount on to a plate and put aside. It should harden in a few minutes.
   
4. After melted your white and milk chocolate, you are ready to make your eggs!
   
5. I used a medium sized egg mould (like this one: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Medium-Mini-Easter-Crackled-Chocolate-Decoration/dp/B00JJNYNLQ). Use a spoon or piping bag to drizzle white chocolate over the base of the egg mould (both halves). Place in the fridge to set (this only takes a few minutes).
   
6. To the rest of the white chocolate, add a few drops of red food colouring, and mix to achieve a pink tone.
   
7. Take the moulds out of the fridge and spread the milk or pink chocolate onto each half. Spread around half the chocolate onto the mould and spread using a teaspoon. Leave at room temperature for a few minutes, then refrigerate for 5 minutes.
   
8. Take out and spread on the rest of the chocolate, being sure there is a even distribution of chocolate around the mould. Refrigerate again, before turning out.
   
   
9. To assemble, melt the remaining white or milk chocolate, and pipe (or carefully spread) around the circumference of one egg shell. Then press the other egg on top. Refrigerate to set.
   

Note: Try other designs and/or other types of chocolates to get interesting designs. You could try flavouring your chocolate! How about grating some orange zest, or adding mint extract to the chocolate?