How our Easter eggs are made

You’ve spotted them on the shelves, and you’ve marvelled at their sight. But have you ever wondered how our Easter eggs are made? We’re here to let you in on the Easter magic that goes on behind our Inventing Room doors.

We’re about to let you into a little secret — how Hotel Chocolat Easter eggs are made…

Easter is naturally a busy time for our chocolatiers at Hotel Chocolat, but it’s one that we all love. Why? Because our Easter eggs defy all the norms with their lavishly thick shells, hand-sculpted moulds, and one-of-a-kind natural flavour combinations.

When we first set out to create our very own Easter eggs, we didn’t want to follow the rules. In fact, we broke them on purpose. CEO, Angus Thirlwell, was advised that Easter eggs should be light, thin, and easy to hide. But we decided to do things a little differently, and we’ve never looked back.

From our gargantuan Ostrich Eggs to our carefully sculpted Egg Sandwiches and Chocolate Pen Pals, there’s always a method in our madness. Find out how our Easter eggs are made. Here’s how we bring our Easter visions to life in chocolate form and why they’ve always been far too good to hide away.

How our Easter eggs are made: The process

Behind the shell of every Hotel Chocolat Easter egg and product is a process that starts over a year in advance. Our team of incredibly talented in-house chocolatiers begins working on the following year’s range around twelve to eighteen months ahead of time.

This is usually a sketch in a notebook, a flash of inspiration, or a mental bookmark of an idea. This is where creativity begins, after all.

These seeds of innovation grow into hours of planning, tweaking, tasting, and testing until they transform into the products you proudly take home. No detail is overlooked, from the nuanced flavour notes to the final piped decorations and finishes.

The Extra-Thick Easter Egg

If rules that were made to be broken took physical form, you’d be left with our Extra-Thick Easter Eggs. These deliciously chunky eggs defy everything that we were told… That Easter eggs should be as thin, delicate, and hollow as possible. Of course, we did the opposite.

From the variety of the Everything Extra-Thick Easter Egg to the flavour punch of the Exuberantly Fruity Extra-Thick Easter Egg, each one is crafted with a lavishly thick shell that delivers the same nostalgic and deeply satisfying snap. We believe that chocolate as flavourful as ours deserves more time to be savoured.

Split open the thick chocolate shell to reveal some of our best-loved bite-sized cacao morsels within — all of which complement your Love Match flavour favourites.

This year, our Extra-Thick Easter Eggs are neatly tucked into 100% recyclable packaging, made from a mix of paper pulp and cacao bean husks. Fully recyclable and designed to be displayed with pride — with no hiding necessary.

The Ostrich Egg

Weighing up to 1kg, our Ostrich Eggs are the true showstoppers of our Easter chocolate collection. Designed for sharing, showing off, and savouring, they are gloriously grand in every sense of the word.

Crafting an Easter egg as grand as this was no easy task — but one that we approached with pure dedication. Ostriches lay the largest eggs of any bird on the planet, so why do no Easter eggs reflect this? It was a brief that we just had to meet.

To create our Ostrich Egg, we took the sizing and dimensions of an authentic ostrich egg and used this as the basis for the product. From this, we developed four incredibly unique flavour variations for our guests to enjoy:

• Classic: 50% milk chocolate and 50% dark chocolate featuring crispy fueilletine, crunchy puffed rice, cookie nibbles, as well as 20 flavour-packed chocolates hidden within.

• Patisserie: 50% milk chocolate with cookie and pecan pieces and 50% milk chocolate with cookie pieces and white chocolate, filled with dessert-inspired treats like Blondie, Peanut Butter and Jelly, and Cherry Bakewell.
  
• Dark Chocolate: A 70% dark chocolate shell with a hint of sea salt, one half scattered with almonds and the other with hazelnuts, filled to the brim with luscious caramels, moreish truffles, and boozy bites.
  
• Unbelievably Vegan*: A creamy plant-based Nutmilk shell featuring cookies and crushed cornflakes, stuffed with a variety of vegan* truffles, caramels and pralines in nutty, fruity, smooth, and simple flavours.

*We believe our dark and Nutmilk chocolate is suitable for vegans. However, as it is made in the same environment as our milk chocolate, we cannot guarantee it is free from milk.

Fancy an Egg Sandwich?

We believe that Easter chocolate should be fun, playful, and exciting. Introducing… our Egg Sandwiches. 

To create our flavoursome chocolate sandwiches, we scanned 3D slices of real bread to create an authentic ‘loaf’ shape. We took this and filled it to the brim with five innovative flavour pairings. They include Caramayo, Cookie Dough and Ice Cream, Chocolate Spread, Toast and Marmalade, and the eyebrow-raising Lamb and Mint.

The result is a beautiful Easter addition that looks a lot like lunch but tastes rather different. Expect a harmony of nuanced cacao notes, the delicate sweetness of cocoa butter, and only the finest natural flavours and colours.

Meet the Chocolate Pen Pals

Our eggs have character — and we mean it. Our Chocolate Pen Pals feature three farmyard friends who are (almost) too adorable to eat. 

Meet Miss Elizapeck, a 40% milk chocolate and caramel chick. Say hello to Mr Wooliam — a dapper lamb made from 46% cacao butter as white as snow. And give Mr Rabbert a wave — he’s our charming milk chocolate bunny with characterful white chocolate paws and a dark chocolate nose.

Our very own Chocolate Sculptress brought this clan to life. They began as a hand-drawn sketch before being sculpted with the utmost care. It’s integral to us that we never use off-the-shelf moulds. 

The result is a truly charming chocolate treat that represents our unwavering passion and creativity for all things cacao.

Make Easter one-of-a-kind with Hotel Chocolat

Now you know how our Easter eggs are made. And the stories behind our Easter chocolates are just as important as their unique flavours and satisfying textures. This Easter, embrace creativity and innovation with Easter eggs and chocolates that are expertly made, beautifully packaged, and simply too good to hide.

Learn more about our alternative Easter eggs, and browse our Easter chocolate collection today.