The Solid Egg: No More Hollow Promises *VIDEO*
So, the Easter Bunny (also known as my friend Kerry) dropped by with a delivery at the weekend. A 540 gram delivery of solid milk chocolate and peanut butter goodness.
Conceived back in 2012 by Leigh Adams and illustrator Sarah Coleman, the Solid Egg bids farewell to the "hollow promises" of all those big brand, palm oil-pumped eggs that line the Supermarket shelves every Spring.
The eggs are handmade in the Midlands from CasaLuker's 'Cacao Fino de Aroma'; high-quality, socially responsible cacao sourced from Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. As well as being actually solid (we used a hammer and chisel to break in to ours!), the milk chocolate egg contains 40% minimum cocoa solids, with the dark clocking up a seductive 70%. (For comparison, one of the UK's most popular chocolate brand's eggs only contain 20% cocoa solids in their milk chocolate, and 36% in their "dark".) For a moment, before we broke in to our Peanut Butter in Milk Chocolate Shell egg, we thought we'd possibly be faced with too much peanut butter - if there is such a thing - but the ratios in the egg were perfect. It's mostly chocolate, with thick, generous portions of peanut butter running through both sides.
See our amateur movie-making endeavours below, where we break in to the egg for the first time using a hammer and chisel (!) and the recommended 'hot knife' technique:
The price may seem steep at £22, when you compare it to other Easter eggs on the market, but this thing is 540 grams of solid, serious quality chocolate. Not only are these eggs damn delicious, they're beautifully designed. The packaging is hand-printed and numbered (see, limited edition), and with every egg comes a stunning screen-printed tea towel covered in funny, chocolate-themed illustrations by Sarah herself. Plus, who the hell needs another KitKat mug?
The other available flavours by Solid Egg this year were:
Solid Dark Chocolate
Solid Milk Chocolate
Solid White Chocolate
Peanut Butter with Dark Shell
Praline with Dark Shell
Praline with Milk Shell
Salted Chocolate
Allergen-Free (Suitable for the dairy intolerant, vegans, coeliacs, and those avoiding soya, this egg is also classed as 'nut safe')
We can't believe it's taken us so long to discover this brand. It's ethical, homegrown, creative, extremely local to us, and totally gratuitous: all the things we love. Can't wait for next Easter!
If the Solid Egg sounds like your bag, follow the movement over on Instagram and Facebook, where they've been sharing illustrations, behind-the-scenes, and customer photos this Easter.