Monday 14 March 2016

Sections of Resurrection Confection

Fanny Cradock loves a festivity. None more than the feast following the fast for the faithful, frazzled, dedicated lenters that is Easter. The Easter partwork is a fanfare for the eyes too as Fanny goes into overdrive with the props, staging, colours and teeny tiny fluffy chicks. It's been a long lent of, well, mostly vegetables and eggs so who can blame her for a fabulous facelift of fanciness? Fanny the fashionista even has a springy new hairdo for the season, very froufrou. Incidentally, and somewhat flippantly, she does have huge hands doesn't she?

Fanny Cradock Easter Egg

Fanny puts her feisty new do and mahoosive flapping hands to perfect use in a glorious pic-strip to show us how to 'play together' as we make our own chocolate Easter Eggs. At a fraction of the cost of shop bought naturally. She is sure that any famished youngsters in the house will 'squeal with delight' on Easter Day to receive one of her highly decorated fancily-finished Easter eggs. But first things first, we need to make them... Although Fanny claims these Eggs are easier on the hard-stretched purse than those to be found in the shops, you do need to shell out for a few bits and bobs to get going. Flim flam. The most expensive is possibly the egg mould.

Fanny Cradock Easter Egg

Fanny recommends an array of fiddly old-fashioned metal moulds (both in plain and 'crocodile' pattern) together with the easier-to-work-with modern plastic versions. I have a super-modern polycarbonate mould. Fanny demands that we set about burnishing the moulds ferociously with a little liquid paraffin, which Fanny finds much better than oil. Just a tiny drop, and rub, rub, rub as hard as you can until they are as slippery as glass, and you are fatigued. The eggs will flip out as if shelling peas seemingly. Fanny tries to reassure me that the fractional amount of paraffin would not upset the stomach of the faintest canary, but I'm still a little sceptical. The polycarbonate moulds really don't need it anyway...

Fanny Cradock Easter Egg

Before Fanny can get cross with me, I turn my careful attention to the chocolate chips, or couverture, which must be softened to a creamy consistency without letting them get hot. Fanny does hers in the warming drawer of her oven overnight to avoid a fiasco. I don't have one, so it's the trusty bowl-over-a-pan-of-simmering-water to avoid failure for me. I do hope Fanny would approve of my chips, they are gloriously and most fortunately green and flavoured with sweet garden mint from Guittard. I bought them in San Francisco. They may not *actually* be chocolate. They are described as 'baking chips'. They are definitely confectionary though, not McCains, for those easily confused.

Fanny Cradock Easter Egg

Once the chips are softened, beaten and cooled, Fanny ladles spoonfuls into the burnished moulds and very slowly tips and turns it to cover the surface. When set, she re-coats and 'if you don't mind using a lot of chocolate' Fanny says, do it again. 'The thicker it is, the less tricky it becomes' she tells us, presumably still talking about the chocolate. Once fully cool and set they should just pop-out without fracture. Mine do, despite the lack of paraffin-enabled moulds. Fanny uses a little softened chocolate as glue to 'clap' two halves together before decoration. Just simple for now, we shall deal with more 'glamorous' ideas next time. Together, of course. Inadvertently, the fluffy chicks look a little disappointed.

Fanny Cradock Easter Egg

10 comments:

  1. Excellent!

    I once tried making easter eggs and failed utterly. Couldn't get the chocolate thick enough.

    Now I'm wondering how to go about making an Easter egg out of chips...

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    1. I might do that just for fun! Fanny's top tip for chocolate, is lots and triple coat it... Have fun!

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  2. I love those mint chips. Your egg looks very scrummy indeed. My, Fanny does have large shovels for hands doesn't she?

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    1. Mint is my very favourite flavour... She really does have huge hands! I was slightly distracted writing as you can tell...

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    2. Me too, I adore all things mint

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    3. Especially Mint Choc Chip Ice Cream, the colour of this chocolate makes me think about it a lot!

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  3. I don't normally like chocolate--I know!--but these look amazing. And we have mint in common! Great post and Happy Easter.

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  4. Firstly I am so jealous of your mint chips and then secondly of your egg mould! I do have plastic one I got free in some magazine but did not work, the chocolate all cracked and fell out in pieces! Maybe I need some paraffin!

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    1. You do need to get burnishing! I'm sure the paraffin will be fine...

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