With the rise in programmes like the Great British Bake Off and Nailed It on Netflix making baking at home more popular than ever, some of you may want to make your own chocolate eggs at home this Easter.
Though making chocolate eggs may not take as much effort as say baking brownies or cupcakes it's an easy way to impress your friends and family.
Best of all, it really doesn't take much to make them look as good as the store bought versions - and you'll have an added hit of pride when you eventually give someone the finished product.
You can get these from websites like Amazon and eBay, for our eggs we bought a set from Lakeland for under £4 and they even came with mini egg moulds.
Picture: Lakeland
If you don't have moulds (or haven't got time) then a fun trick to simply use small water balloons and wooden skewers.
First, clean the balloon some warm soapy water and dry it off, fill it to desired size with air and tie it, then push the skewer through the tied off end so that balloon 'hangs' from the skewer like in the video below.
Then cover your balloon in a little oil and dip it into the melted chocolate covering it before leaving it to hang over a bowl and place it in the fridge, once cooled use a second skewer to burst the balloon and remove it before patching the hole with some left over chocolate. Be warned though, these eggs won't look anywhere as pretty as the ones made with moulds but can be more fun to make.
For the best results with the moulds it's also handy to have a thermometer.
You'll need a glass bowl, a chopping board and a pot filled half way with water.
It is really up to you what kind of chocolate you use, be it dark, milk chocolate or white, but you just need to decide how many eggs you are hoping to make with around 2-3 100g good quality bars (a higher cocoa count is better here) being the perfect amount for one egg.
Chop the chocolate into fine small pieces then place it into the glass bowl.
Heat the water until simmering over a low heat (don't boil).
Then place the glass bowl on top of the pot, making sure it doesn't touch the water.
Allow the chocolate to melt, stirring every so often.
Once melted remove it from the pot and leave it to cool to about 35 degrees (check using the thermometer.
Wash the moulds and dry them.
From here you can either spoon the chocolate into the moulds, spreading it evenly. leave to cool in the freezer for five minutes or out on the worktop for 15, repeat the process (reheating the chocolate to the magic 35 degrees if need be) until it's about half a centimetre thick.
Remove the eggs from the mould by squeezing them genlty then stick the two sides together using some lefter over melted chocolate.
Alternative method (requires some way to stick the two moulds together such as tape or crocodile clips)
Fill the first mould until it's about three quarters full, attach the second mould to the top of the first one and secure it using tape or crocodile clips until you are sure no chocolate can escape then gently rotate the egg moulds until both sides are evenly covered and then place in the fridge.
For an extra luxury touch, you could buy some coloured foil rolls online or from your local craft shop and use them to wrap the eggs before gifting.
