I Only Make them Hollow

I wish chocolate Easter Bunnies multiplied the way real bunnies seem to. Alas, I have to make every single one!

We have chocolate Easter bunnies in two sizes and all are hollow. I know that a lot of people like solid chocolate bunnies but there are a couple reasons why we are not making them this year. The first and most important is that we don't have the proper mold equipment to make them solid. We did not purchase bases for the molds we have and therefore cannot make them solid chocolate as there is nothing to hold the chocolate in the mold. For those who are thinking, "it can't be too hard to rig something up", think again. Once these molds are filled with chocolate, even the small one is very heavy and there is no flat surface to the mold. It just doesn't sit well anywhere, even upside down! We've tried them all. So maybe next year, we'll invest in a few bases to see if we can make some solid bunnies.

But another problem with these bunnies is that when they are solid, they are A LOT of chocolate. The smaller of the two weighs in at just over 14 ounces, only a few ounces shy of a pound. The larger would probably be almost twice that! So the retail price of a solid bunny would be rather high. I think we could sell them but I hope people understand that these aren't the chocolate bunnies you can get at any major retail store. So they are worth the money!

So besides not having the proper equipment and the cost of making these solid bunnies, there is the logistics of having them come out looking GOOD. Chocolate can be temperamental when you try to combine them at different temperatures. By the time you get the mold coated without air bubbles, it's just too cold to combine with the chocolate you add to the middle. This causes streaking and bloom. It whacks the chocolate out of it's proper temper and makes it stick to the mold rather than releasing cleanly. Then, I've got bupkus for all the time I put into this thing.

One of my main reasons for not "liking" solid bunnies is that they are so HARD! Good chocolate is hard, crisp, and shiny. Solid pieces of chocolate that are thick can be hard on your teeth! That's mostly why chocolate should be allowed to melt slightly on your tongue rather than be chewed. A chocolate bunny is hard to cut through and ends up more like grated chocolate than anything. But that is more of a personal preference of mine and I'm sure that there are plenty of people who don't mind cutting up that bunny however they must.

I'm not saying I'll never make solid chocolate bunnies! In time and with practice, I'm sure I will get the hang of making them come out properly. With the investment into the proper molds, we can try them out for next year. I suppose I can overcome my fear of the super hard chocolate! But for this year and for now, I'm making HOLLOW Easter Bunnies. They come in milk, dark, and white in two sizes. The smaller of the two is $5.25 and the larger is $8.25. The smaller stands 6.5 inches and the larger is 8.5 inches tall. They vary slightly in weight.

We have other wonderful offerings for Easter as well. Solid Easter Crosses in all the chocolates. I'm trying to paint the flowers on some of them but it all depends on what I have available for time. I have the ever-popular "buck" bunnies, as I call them. They are small and flat with a colored bow tie. Called "buck" because they are priced at 1.00. We have two different chocolate pops with bunny heads and our spring flower pops are starting to blossom. (You can't say "bloom" to a chocolatier!) While I can't speak for Ellen (owner and chocolatier), she has been saying she's going to make some Easter marshmallows. If you haven't tried our homemade marshmallows, you don't know what you're missing. (I'm hoping that we can soon substitute them in our Warmers' Smore Pops! Yummy!)

Our decadent Truffle Eggs are also back. We try to do these 1/2 pound eggs to order but we try to keep some in the shop during the week of Easter. Truffle filling is perishable and best when fresh so we don't like to make them too far in advance. I'll be kicking production up around the first days of April. We make several flavors and the Coconut one seems to be most popular followed by our Peanut Butter. I'm partial to the Milk truffle egg and our white chocolate fans swear by our White Raspberry Egg. I also make a Dark Truffle egg for our dark chocolate lovers.
So stop by the shop or give us a call, if you need anything for Easter. We can ship via Priority Mail but we don't deliver. Hop on in for a bit of chocolate!