Make Easter Eggs At Home
New Zealand Make Easter Eggs At Home
Do you want to get crafty in the kitchen and make your own Easter eggs? Learn how easy it is to make chocolate or icing Easter eggs at home with our Easter egg recipes.
Making Easter eggs is one way to lessen the guilt and heighten the enjoyment of your chocolate feast at Easter! After all that effort, don’t you deserve a little chocolate Easter egg indulgence? Make Easter eggs for your family, friends and workmates – and if you’ve got kids at home, get them involved too with these easy Easter eggs recipes.
Why do we have Easter eggs?
At Easter time, we give, eat and buy Easter eggs to celebrate the life of Jesus Christ and the arrival of Spring (it’s Autumn for us here in the Southern Hemisphere though!). Eggs have been a symbol of new life throughout time, but the history of Easter eggs tells us that in the 18th century, Jakob Grimm (yes, the author of Grimm’s Fairytales!) was the first to suggest a connection between Easter eggs and pagan symbolism.
In the Jewish Passover feast an egg symbolizes new life, as did the painted eggs that were used in celebration by the ancient Persians. In Christianity, the egg also represents new life – Easter eggs may have been used to mark the end of Lent, a time of fasting when eggs and other animal-derived foods were not allowed. Today, the Easter bunny hides chocolate eggs for children to find on Easter Sunday morning.
Making chocolate Easter eggs
You can make Easter eggs at home with this simple and delicious chocolate Easter eggs recipe:
¾ cup peanut butter
¼ cup butter, softened
1 cup dessicated coconut
1 ½ - 2 cups icing sugar
300g milk chocolate chips
Cream peanut butter and butter together, then stir in coconut and 1 cup of icing sugar. Mix well, then stir in remaining icing sugar gradually, until the mixture holds when pressed into an egg shape. Divide into 24 pieces and press into egg shapes with your hands. Cover and place in fridge to chill for 1 hour. Melt chocolate chips in a microwave or on the stove-top. Stir until smooth and melted. Dip eggs in chocolate and place on waxed paper to harden. Chill, then enjoy!
How to make icing Easter eggs
Making these traditional Easter egg treats is simple and heaps of colourful fun for the kids. If you’re worried about using food colourings – you may be able to find natural food colouring alternatives at your local supermarket, or try homemade alternatives like crushed blueberries or strawberries to use when you try this simple Easter eggs recipe at home.
250g soft white icing:
1 cup icing sugar
1 tsp butter
1 Tbsp water
¼ tsp vanilla essence
Your choice of food colouring – red, green, blue, yellow
Your choice of flavour essences – raspberry, banana, peppermint (optional)
Combine icing sugar, butter, water and vanilla essence until the mixture is smooth and pliable – it should be firm, not liquid. Divide the icing into three bowls and add different colourings and flavour essences to each. Work the colour into the icing with your hands until the colour is even, then form Easter egg shapes and place on waxed paper. Decorate with patterns: stripes, dots, zigzags and stars. Chill to set.
Decorating Easter eggs
If all that sugar is making you ill, try decorating real eggs to make your own Easter egg decorations! This is a great way to bring this symbol of new life into your Easter celebration. Dyeing or painting Easter eggs is also easy for kids to do and will give art-loving kids a canvas with a difference.
To make dyed Easter eggs, you can use hardboiled eggs or blown eggs (a completely whole, empty eggshell). Blown eggs are more fragile, but can be used again the next year. To empty the egg, shake it to break the yolk then pierce the egg at both ends with a needle and blow into it with a small drinking straw. Rinse well, then use food colouring, dyes or paints to decorate the eggshells.
Looking for more information? Find out how to make Easter eggs in the NZS.com directory.
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Seasons and Celebrations images from Flickr: Easter Eggs, Chickees and Chocolate Bunnies.
