Vegan home-made ‘milk’ chocolate Easter eggs

Before going vegan I used to love the little Lindor chocolate fondant filled Easter eggs. I wanted an egg like this where the chocolate was both vegan and Fairtrade. I couldn’t find anything on the market so I decided to make them - which involved making my own vegan ‘milk’ chocolate from Fairtrade dark chocolate. I didn’t find a recipe for this online so wanted to share the method I came up with, which can obviously be used for non-egg-shaped chocolate as well.

‘Milk’ chocolate for the shells

• 20g coconut milk powder
• 40g gianduja (chocolate hazelnut paste, the one I used came in cubes)
• 160g Fairtrade dark chocolate (54%)

Put the coconut milk powder and 60g of the chocolate in a plastic bowl and melt (in microwave or double boiler), stirring thoroughly and frequently taking care not to burn. Once melted and smooth, stir in the gianduja. Then add the remaining 100g chocolate and continue heating/stirring until only just melted.

Notes on tempered chocolate: my instructions suggest mixing in the coconut milk powder and gianduja first and then adding the final portion of chocolate. This is to allow you to heat it up higher to incorporate in these other ingredients, without destroying all of the seed crystals in your tempered chocolate. This way you get a nice glossy finish when your chocolate sets, instead of cloudy/crumbly chocolate or powdery fat 'bloom' on the surface, which is still edible but not as pretty or as tasty. Melting in a plastic bowl also helps with this, compared with Pyrex glass or metal which will retain heat and can tip the melted chocolate ‘over the edge’. If microwaving, towards the end use very short bursts (~4 seconds) to ensure the chocolate doesn’t heat any more than necessary.

Equipment for making eggs

• Mould - I used a polycarbonate one for 43mm mini eggs
• Baking parchment or silicon sheet - to catch the excess chocolate if you intend to use the pour-off method.
• Metal scraper - to scrape off excess chocolate giving a clean edge to the shells (I made do with the back of a knife)
• Optional silicone brush - if you prefer to fill the shells with a brush. I found this too fiddly.

Use the melted chocolate to make your egg shells. Either use a brush to coat the mould with a layer of chocolate (you may have to do 2-3 coats) or fill the whole mould and then tip upside-down to pour out the excess. You can catch this on baking parchment or a clean silicone mat and reuse it later. Place the mould in the fridge until set - I put it upside down on another silicon sheet, to ensure the edges of the shells are thick.

Chocolate ganache for the filling

• 70g dark chocolate
• 50g plant-milk (I use oat)
• 5g vegan butter

Heat the milk in a pan, then turn off the heat and stir in the chocolate and butter until melted. Pour into each shell to fill. Put the shells back into the fridge.

Once the ganache is firm, flip the mould upside down again to release the shells. Then heat up a plate, take a pair of shells and place them with edges down on the plate for a few seconds to melt the chocolate, then press together. Put aside to set.

Because this ganache filling uses ingredients that need refrigerating I recommend that it is eaten within 2-3 days, or stored in the fridge and eaten within ~7 days.

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If anyone knows of a long-life fondant recipe I would love to hear it as that would be very useful for when I make these again next year!

Nice! I bet they're really delicious. Some friends of mine are not even vegan and they love coconut milk chocolate.

Before the pandemic, I used to take some coworkers to have lunch with me at a vegan restaurant near work. They liked the restaurant and started to have lunch there mainly to buy a coconut milk chocolate for dessert.

They look great!

These look absolutely incredible!!! 🤤

Wow! These look amazing!

No fuckin way! 😲

They look tasty, but the texture looks off to me... like something the Bon Appetit Test Kitchen would have put out on a day when Sohla called in sick.