chocolate Easter eggs 2019!

Happy Easter, everyone! I hope that you are enjoying the holiday in whatever way you choose to celebrate. For those that don’t celebrate Easter, happy Sunday! I hope you are making the most of the day in whatever way you can.

I created my first series of chocolate Easter eggs back in 2013 while working as an instructor at the French Pastry School. I can’t honestly recall what inspired the project, other than enjoying chocolate work and thinking themed chocolate eggs would be fun.

Of course, I wasn’t aware at the time that the series of eggs would become the start of a tradition, and that six years later I’d have over 20 eggs (and a whole ‘lotta chocolate) under my belt! I’ve grown to really love making my collection of eggs each holiday, and I’m even more thrilled that a small group of chocolate lovers has followed them over the years. My sincere hope is that is has inspired other cooks and chefs to make eggs and chocolate sculptures of their own.

This was a special year of chocolate eggs for me. I created only three – a small series compared to years past – but that in and of itself was a big feat. This is the first time I’ve produced my collection outside of a full-scale professional kitchen, and I wasn’t fully prepared at the scope and difficulty of creating them in a small home studio. Thankfully, I made it through with three eggs intact and all of them pretty close to my artistic vision!

This was also my first year having truly free artistic license to create what I wanted. To their credit and the credit of my Executive Chef at the time Anthony Zamora, I was given incredible leeway in creation while Pastry Chef at the Langham, Chicago. Even so, I still represented a brand and was making eggs to be viewed by a fairly specific demographic, so my work needed to fall within those lines.

This year, though, I work for me, and that meant I could make whatever I damn-well pleased. The funny thing is, save for the Planet Eggspress egg, I didn’t really stray far from what I would have made at the hotel! Still, as I’m sure any creative individual will understand, knowing that I had no one to answer to made the process that much more enjoyable.

Last but definitely not least, this year I filmed the entire process of egg creation. I’m sitting on a huge volume of footage showing everything from initial design and sketching to the last piece glued on the last egg. For those interested, I will absolutely be sharing those videos with you, but you’ll have to be a bit patient because I am but one man, and that’s a hell of a lot of video to edit…

Overall, I’m really pleased with my eggs this year. If I’m being fair, they aren’t my greatest work in terms of technical skill applied, but the fact that I was able to adapt to my “bare-bones” environment to make it happen is enough for me, and I learned a lot from the experience, which is always what I’ digging for.

I hope you enjoy the eggs, and maybe get inspired to create one of your own!

Cheers – Chef Scott