Yolk eggs...only a few months late!

I was absolutely thrilled to see this message on the window of the West Vancouver Lululemon store a few months ago:

You know those Purdy's cream eggs that most people seem to find far too sweet? Well, I can eat three in one sitting and still crave more! They are perhaps my favourite sugary candy. And when it comes to running...well, this window posting highlights one of the major reasons why I run: so that I can eat more treats!

Dave and I have made a few attempts at Purdy's cream eggs but haven't been able to reproduce the wonderfully smooth, gooey centres surrounded by crisp dark chocolate...until now!

We used this recipe from food.com (although note that having grown up in BC I feel that Cadbury cream eggs just cannot compare to the Purdy's version. Our final product didn't taste like either but was far superior to both!):

There are a few important modifications:

1. Add only as much icing sugar as you like - 3 cups makes them a bit dry for my liking. 1-2 cups yielded a much creamier result.

2. We had a bit of a fiasco on our hands when we froze the yolks, then tried to cover them with whites, then tried to get them into chocolate molds. If you don't add all the icing sugar, they are VERY difficult to work with. If you have a chocolate mold, I'd suggest working with the filling while it is still in paste form, then freezing before completing the egg (or top of the mold, depending what shape you use).

3. I like salt, probably a little more than I should - but I did think that doubling the salt really enhanced the flavour and provided a nice contrast with the chocolate.

4. You must use very good chocolate or they're not worth eating. We buy Callebaut chocolate in bulk from Superstore and try to temper it first.

We used flower-shaped molds, which are very convenient for chocolate-making...so this was in fact a bit of a variation on an egg. Interestingly, some recipes suggest using invertase to liquefy the filling - but this takes about 5 days, which means you can't eat them right away, and I just don't have the patience for this technique. I thought this filling was the perfect consistency once the icing sugar content was adjusted to my liking.

If eating the cream egg by itself isn't for you, the Huffington post has some excellent cream egg pairing suggestions.