Dairy-free Mini Creme Eggs

Creme eggs are such a part of Easter, they’re almost iconic. In fact when they appear on the shelves days after Christmas, the whole country makes a collective sigh over the march of time and the incessant selling of seasonal goods by the big supermarkets.

Creme eggs seem to pop up all over the place, so often the egg of choice in commercial Easter egg hunts; events which sadly have never held much appeal for my girls. It’s no so fun to search for something you then have to hand over to a grown up, whilst all your friends gorge themselves on sweet chocolatey delights.

So I’ve always wanted to recreate creme eggs, at least then the girls would know they’re not missing out on not eating the sickly sweet commercial variety. As it happens, these are far more moreish that I remember the shop ones being, no doubt helped by their dinky size! Whilst by no means healthy, I’m sure this variety must be a little more wholesome than Cadburys ones!

Now I can’t take full praise for the filling, (one which I’d always wondered how to successfully recreate) as I came across a link to Paul A Young making these on This Morning. The idea he used is total genius (well he is a genius chocolatier) and so very simple! The filling is simply grated fondant icing, mixed with a little sugar syrup to give a sticky gooey centre. I happen to have a stock pile of nut-free Dr Oertker roll out fondant icing, but I know since the change in production that nut-free can be hard to find. If necessary homemade can be made using this marshmallow based recipe, or this veggie version.

Dairy-free Creme Eggs

(dairy-free, egg-free, nut-free, can be soya-free, sesame-free, can be gluten-free, vegetarian and vegan)

Makes 6 small eggs, multiply as necessary

100g dairy-free chocolate

125g fondant icing, grated

1 tbsp caster sugar

1 tbsp water

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

1. Melt and temper the chocolate. Coat the egg moulds with a layer of chocolate. Let set and then coat again. Place in the fridge to firm up. Hopefully you’ll have some chocolate left over which should be placed in a piping bag.
2. Make a sugar syrup by melting the sugar into the water.
3. Split the grated fondant into two bowl, 100g in one and 25g in the other.
4. Colour the 25g with yellow food colouring (or use already coloured yellow). Add a dribble of syrup to make the correct gooey texture.
5. Add the vanilla and sugar syrup to the white icing and again mix to the correct texture (it wants to be thick but gooey).
6. Fill each half egg, two thirds full with white fondant, top with a dollop of yellow to form the yolk.
7. Pipe the melted chocolate around the edge of the egg and sandwich two halves together. Leave to set in the fridge and then shave off any excess bits of chocolate.