Wyldestone Cottage: Happy Easter Egg Tutorial

The other day I saw this post at My Romantic Home with this photograph of a bowl of chocolate eggs.

They looked so yummy and I was positive she was going to have a how- to tutorial on how to make them. I was shocked to find out they weren't real but I liked them so much , I decided to figure out how to make my own.

I paid a visit to Michaels craft store where I found these white wooden eggs. I then bought some acrylic paint in chocolate brown and black. Then I got some Scribbles 3 diminsional paint in white, chocolate brown, black and lilac.

I painted some of the eggs with just the chocolate brown for a milk chocolate effect and the rest, I mixed a drop of black into the brown to give a dark chocolate look. The eggs got two coats of paint with several hours to dry in between. I then used the Scribbles to drizzle 3 diminsional paint over the eggs in contrasting colours. Black and lilac on the dark brown eggs, white on the chocolate brown eggs and chocolate on the white eggs. A few more hours to dry and then I painted the bottom of the eggs. ( they have flat bottoms so can be stood on end)

And here is the finished result ( well I think I will spray them with verathane to seal them and make them look more glossy, but that will have to wait for another day as I have to go to work)

What do you think, do they look edible to you?

While I was waiting for paint to dry, I took a dozen real eggs and blew them out. I used a small file to poke a hole through both ends, then used a dremal with a pointy sanding disc to widen the hole at the bottom.

Use a needle to break up the yolk and then blow through the small hole to empty the contents of the egg.

Then they were put in a pot of cold water with one tblsp of vinegar and boiled for about 10 minutes to sterilize them , all the while skimming the stuff that floated to the top.

I dipped them in a container filled with vinagar then put them in a dye bath of 4 tblsp vinegar to 2 cups of hot water and 12 drops of blue food colouring.

When they turned the shade of blue I wanted , I took them out with a spoon, rinsed them out, shook as much water out as I could and patted them dry. I let them dry for a few days to make sure there was no water left on the inside, then melted chocolate chips in a double boiler and put them into a plastic pastry bag so I could pipe the chocolate into the egg shells.

I set the shells into an egg crate to hold them upright while filling them with chocolate. To seal the holes , I melted a small amount of white chocolate with blue gel colouring ( don't use food colouring for this as the water in it will not mix with the chocolate, use a gel colouring found in cake decorating ) to match the eggs and carefully smoothed it over the holes to hide the dark chocolate. ( sorry I don't have a picture of me putting the chocolate in the egg shells, but it was a two- handed job and I didn't have another hand to manage the camera.) Let the eggs cool for awhile or put in the fridge for a short time.

Heres all my eggs in one basket :)

I gave some to my friend and he cracked one open for us on camera.

MMMMM, yummy solid chocolate egg. (and this one is edible!!)

I used 1kilo of semi -sweet chips and got a dozen eggs out of that. I'm sure I could have done probably another 4 or so , but I made a big mess and had chocolate everywhere and wasted a fair amount. I think next time, I would use quail eggs as they are much smaller to fill. If you crack them near the top and carefully remove the egg shell, you could fill the bottoms with candle wax and a wick and reuse them as Easter Egg candles.