Coconut, Vanilla, Chocolate and Peanut Butter Easter Eggs

Growing up in France, we always had magical Easter. The Chocolate my parents bought were always from Excellent Patisserie and were always very impressive in look, but also in taste. I will always remember how good they were always. And I really miss not being able to buy some chocolate from a real chocolate maker.

As you can imagine my upbringing got me accustomed to some very good food and to some very good chocolate. As a result I like food of great quality, and the same thing goes with chocolate.

To me chocolate has to taste like chocolate. This means of course that its content in cocoa can be no less than 60%. Well you will probably find this only in chocolate of great quality such as European Chocolate or more expensive brand name such as Ghiradhelli or Godiva.

Well since those chocolate are the only one that i bought, they are also the only one my children will eat as well. They too have been accustomed to some very good chocolate: Lindt, Cadburry, Godiva, Ghiradhelli.

This year when the chocolate started to take their place on grocery shelves i tried to find their favorite, and was not able to find all that they like. In fact, one of their favorite was not to be found so at all I decided that for once I would try to make Easter Eggs.

I wanted to make a chocolate Ganache praline eggs, but since my daughter does not like nuts I decided to try this recipe found on Recipe.com

Ingredients for 20 eggs:

For the outer shell of your eggs, you may use real chocolate or chocolate bark ( a bit cheaper) but not as good.

1/2 to 1 cup of bitter sweet chocolate ( ghiradhelli preferebly)
vanilla chocolate bark ( 1 cup divided in 1/4 cup for each color ( pink, green, white, orange)
various food coloring
or chocolate chips of various colors ( only 1/4 cup per color will be enough)
1/2 cup of butter at room temperature or warmed in microwave for 30 sec.
1 tsp of vanilla extract
1 package of cream cheese at room temperature
2 1/2 lbs of powdered sugar
1 cup of creamy peanut butter
1 cup of flaked coconut
1 cup of unsweetened cocoa ( I used ghiradhelli)

Place the chocolate in a microwave bowl and melt the chocolate for 1 minutes. Stir, and cook in the microwave for 30 sec. increments after that until the chocolate is completly melted and free of lumps.
With a pastry brush, brush the inside of the egg tray. Place the tray into the freezer so that it will harden faster.
After a few minutes, brush a second layer of chocolate inside each of those chocolate eggs.
Place it the tray back into the freezer. Meanwhile prepare the filing of your eggs.

Filling of your eggs:

In a large bowl, mix together the butter, vanilla and cream cheese.
Stir in the powdered sugar to make a dough.
Divide the dough into 4.
Leave one plain.
In one, mix the peanut butter.
In another one, mix the coconut.
In another one mix the cocoa.
Now, remove the tray from the freezer and roll balls out of each of those dough to make the filling of those eggs. Place and shape the dough inside each of those eggs.
Brush the top of those eggs with the chocolate again to close the eggs.
Place the eggs into the freezer for 30 minutes to an hour.
Unmold each egg from the tray and lay them flat down onto a roul’pat or silpat.
Melt 1/4 cup of vanilla chocolate bark and mix in some coloring of your choice to make the color of your choice. Place this melted chocolate into a plastic bag, or a pastry bag and drizzle this chocolate over the eggs.
Repeat this process with all the colors that you want, to make various drawings or designs as shown below.