Coconut and Mango Vegan Creme Egg
Happy Easter! I love Spring, it's my second favourite season after Autumn (Autumn will forever have my heart). It's bursting with new life, potential and chocolate! I've been busy pottering away in my garden over the last couple of weeks. I brought some wildflower seeds today to encourage bees and butterflies to my garden, and I've already started growing herbs, potatoes and tomatoes for my edible plants. I'm also off to Devon for the weekend, Dartmoor in Spring is blissful, baby sheep, cows and ponies are everywhere over the moors, and the flowers are beautiful and it's wild garlic season. So expect a wild garlic recipe when I return no doubt. We will also being doing the annual egg hunt with the kids, which will include my latest invention, vegan creme eggs!
Cadbury's creme eggs are iconically Easter. I was inspired to create my own when I saw on instagram that Arjuna Whole Foods in Cambridge were stocking vegan creme eggs from Motley Bakes. As i don't live in Cambridge (if you do I whole heartily recommend Arjuna whole foods.) I was feeling pretty deprived so I decided to create my own. I used coconut creme and milk for the white filling and added mango to create the yolk. I really like the refreshing burst of fruit that comes with the yellow centre. I'm so proud of these babes! My sister recently turned 21, and at her party I handed around the first trial of creme eggs to some of her friends, including a Northerner who was pretty anti-vegan, and everyone loved them. I'd only made a few so I had a fight on my hands over the last remaining one. The general feedback was that they were delicious, and not too sickly sweet like Cadbury's creme eggs, apparently a lot of people don't like the originals for that exact reason.Once again I did my usual diabetic thing of keeping the sugar content quite low for a desert recipe. The chocolate shells contain all the sugar of the bar of chocolate used to create them, but the fillings only contains a teaspoon of agave each. You can trade agave for traditional sugar here if you would like.
For this recipe you will need chocolate egg moulds, you can find the quite cheaply online. I would recommend silicon as this is easiest to work with. What I wouldn't recommend is silicon chocolate egg moulds that are exactly the same shade of brown as vegan milk chocolate, which is exactly what I ended up with! It was exceedingly difficult to see where the mould ended and the chocolate started but I made it work.
In other news I'm hosting a Great British Spring Clean of my local river, the river Pool in Sydenham, on May 4th (may the fourth be with you). We are going to pick litter to prevent it entering the local waterway and making it to the ocean. If you would like to get involved this event is free to attend but you have to sign up for tickets here. If you are local to South East London this is a great way to get involved in looking after our local green spaces but also to help the wider world too!
This Spring has felt like a really good few months for me, I've been doing blog work, other creative projects and working on my garden. Honestly just getting outside with my hands in the dirt has been such good medicine.I'm really excited to now have a few days away for Easter and to relax and unwind and enjoy my creme eggs, Hey, why don't you join me?!
Makes 4 eggs
Ingredients
200g vegan milk chocolate
For the egg whites
4 tablespoons coconut creme
3 tablespoons coconut milk
1 tablespoon coconut oil
2 teaspoons arrowroot
1 teaspoon agave
1/4 teaspoon vanilla essence
For the yolk
1/4 mango
4 tablespoons coconut creme
3 tablespoons coconut milk
1 tablespoon coconut oil
2 teaspoons turmeric
1 teaspoon arrowroot
1 teaspoon agave
Method
1) In a pan place all the ingredients for the egg whites, and heat over a low heat until it comes to the boil. Remove from the heat and allow to cool, before placing into the fridge for at least an hour to stiffen.
2) Place the mango, and the remaining yolk ingredients into a blender and blend till smooth. Once again place into a pan and bring to the boil. Remove from the heat and allow to cool, before placing into the fridge to stiffen.
3) Temper the chocolate, to do this finely chop 100g of chocolate.
4) Melt the other 100g of unchopped chocolate by placing in a bowl over a pan of boiling water.
5) Once the chocolate has melted, remove the bowl from the pan and stir in the finely chopped chocolate.
6) Once the chocolate is stirred in and melted further cool the chocolate. You want it to reach 32'c, you can do this by placing over ice.
7) Once cooled pour the chocolate into the egg moulds. Pour for approximately 3 seconds into each one. You should have some remaining chocolate, set this aside for later. Pick the mould up and twist around so the chocolate covers the mould completely. Once you think it is evenly distributed place upside down on a cooling rack over a tray for a few minutes to stop any excess chocolate pooling in the bottom.
8) Turn the eggs over and allow to cool at room temperature. Once completely set place into the fridge for half an hour. If you don't mind about your eggs not being shiny you can not bother tempering the chocolate and just melt and pour the chocolate as normal.
9) Remove the eggs and the fillings from the fridge. Give the fillings a mix with a spoon to loosen a little.Then take a teaspoon and spoon the egg white into the egg, you don't want to fill right to the top. Using a different teaspoon add a blob of the egg yolk on top. Place the eggs back into the fridge for 10 mins.
10) Take the remaining chocolate and remelt it over a pan of water.
11) Using a pastry brush brush a thin layer of chocolate around the shell of one of the egg halves. Take another half and place on top. Do this to all the remaining eggs.