In the process of organizing and inventorying my molds earlier this month, I realized that while I had intended to purchase a second polycarbonate Easter egg mold last year so that I could produce 24 pieces at a time, I had in fact never placed the order. I immediately hopped on Amazon and clicked "add to cart." The delivery estimate was a day in April. After Easter. I pulled out a few different egg molds to use instead, including a silicone one.
I also spent a week or so contemplating the flavour for this year. In the past, I've made strawberry, raspberry, peanut butter (one gianduja and one fudge), orange creamsicle, and even cream eggs. This year I was thinking I might try making a strawberry lemonade flavour, but at the end of the day pistachio white chocolate gianduja won out. Pistachio is having a moment, after all, thanks to the Dubai chocolate craze. My hunt for pistachio paste led me to the tiniest jar known to man. It cost $9.99, but at least I was able to buy it locally. Ingredients acquired, I was ready to make Easter eggs just as soon as the spirit moved me.
Mid-month, I was pleasantly surprised when the mold I had ordered arrived several weeks ahead of schedule. Armed with two polycarbonate Easter egg molds, I decided there was no time like the present and gathered my tools.
I had much more success tempering chocolate using my microwave this time around. No overheating the chocolate for me! I shelled the two molds and let them set. Then I combined equal parts of white chocolate and pistachio paste to create the gianduja centre. My math, however, failed me. The recipe I reviewed said that 500g would fill 92 standard size bonbons. That's about 5.4g per piece, which meant that 300g should fill 55. Now, eggs are larger than standard bonbons, but there were only 24 of them, so I thought that should be enough to fill the eggs without having leftovers. Alas, I filled 19 eggs and was left with 5 empty shells. I decided to make 100g of peanut dark chocolate gianduja with the idea that I would keep these alternatives for any recipients who didn't like pistachios. I left them to crystallize overnight.
The following day, I used a chalk marker to write on the side of the mold so that I would know which eggs were peanut and which were pistachio. I tempered 300g of dark chocolate to cap the eggs and once they were set I prepared to unmold them. I started with the mold that only contained pistachio centres. Clearly I nailed the temper, because before I had fully inverted the mold, the eggs toppled out onto the tray. Luckily, none cracked. I pushed them aside. Not wanting a repeat, because that would make it impossible to know which eggs were peanut, I placed a cutting board over the second mold and inverted it. I then very carefully transferred the eggs, keeping the five peanut ones separate from the rest. Time will tell if my method actually worked!
I have to say that I feel much better about the production of these eggs than I did about my assortments at Christmas. Maybe it's because I had more time, or because I know my microwave better now, or because I was in a very Zen space this time, but the tempering went smoothly, I was able to work very cleanly, and the eggs unmolded without any effort. A very successful production run!
And I can't wait to taste one on Easter Sunday.
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