How to make Bollywood Chocolate Easter Eggs

You've heard of Boiled Eggs...well these are Bollied Eggs: chocolate Easter eggs with a Bollywood theme. Completely edible, I made them by sticking edible picture onto chocolate eggs, then decorated them with edible glitter, edible gemstones, edible flowers, edible glue and even edible paint which I got from my local craft store Hobbycraft.

How to make your own Bollywood Easter eggs

Materials you'll need to make Bollywood chocolate eggs

First up, choose which stars you want to immortalise in chocolate and save the images as jpg files. I emailed my images to a UK based company called Icing Pictures. You send them the images you want printed, they print them onto edible icing and post them back to you. It's a really easy service, they even re-size the images for you. I had six images printed onto one sheet of A4 and it cost £9.99 including postage and packaging. I'm guessing this service exists in other countries - even your local bakery might be able to help. 

Edible images, cut out 

Next up decide on your eggs. The easiest method is to buy ready made eggs, or if you're feeling adventurous you can melt chocolate, pour into a mould and make your own eggs. I tried this method and discovered that a) you need to use a lot of chocolate as when you melt down a bar, you're not left with much and b) I couldn't get the eggs to come out of the moulds easily. If you're already a chocolate maker you may know the knack, but after ending up with broken shells I decided to stick with the easy option and buy the eggs.

Chocolate egg-making fail

Apply the image to the egg. Instructions for the brand of edible picture you use may vary, but the type I bought involved cutting it down to size... 

peeling off the backing and wetting the back with a little water...

...then smoothing it onto the chocolate shell. It's a delicate operation so be patient. Too much water and the image will disintegrate and too much smoothing and it will erode off, so practise a few times before you go through with any final designs.

Once the image is on, the fun part begins: the decorating. 
Here are some ideas.

The Item Girl egg

Bollywood movies wouldn't be the same without a song and a dance. The most innovative and best-loved Item Girl in history is Helen, a cabaret star who starred in numerous movies in the 60s and 70s. She was one of a kind, with great style, so I created an elaborate, colourful, vintage inspired egg embellished with sugar flowers.

The Bejewelled Devdas egg

When it was released in 2002 Devdas starring former Miss World Aishwarya Rai-Bachchan was the most expensive film made in Bollywood history, costing over $7million. Lavish in every way, from the extraordinary costumes to the grand, colourful sets, I painted this egg in edible gold/copper paint then stuck on edible jelly jewels held in place with icing pens. I also outlined the image with icing spots.


The Simple Salu egg

Affectionately known as Salu, Salman Khan is my favourite of all the Khans in the filmi fraternity. He has incredible charisma on the screen and I always look forward to his films for their entertainment value. I kept this one simple with a touch of icing - I was going to apply silver balls but decided they just weren't needed in the end. He alone holds the attention. 

The Randeepian egg

I'm a Randeepian and proud - a dedicated follower and fan of actor Randeep Hooda, one of the most popular actors of the moment and undoubtedly the hottest, hence the reason I positioned him inside an iced heart and added white chocolate hearts which I decorated with edible glitter and icing - one I can't wait to take a bite into!

The Blockbuster egg

Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge is the most famous Bollywood movie in history and one of the best. Released in 2015, 20 years on it's still playing in cinemas - no other film can claim that. The leads are played by mega stars Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol, and this is a classic film poster shot. 


Not a Bollywood fan? You can get any image printed onto edible paper from pop stars to pets. 

Top tips

• The icing pens take around 24 hours to dry so make them in plenty of time before you need to give one as a gift.
• While decorating the egg, sit it in an egg cup as that way you can access all sides of it easily.
• If you are giving them as a gift try placing them in cellophane and tie up with ribbon.

Materials

My images were printed at www.icingpictures.co.uk.

All other materials used for this project were from my local branch of Hobbycraft:
Sugar flowers, edible glitter, icing tubes, edible paint, chocolate hearts, edible gemstones.

The chocolate eggs and giant green and yellow iced spots on the DDLJ eggs were from Asda, but you'll find all of the above online or in cake supplies shops. 

Happy Bollied Egg Making!

Memories of The Last Rolo

The other day a friend gave me their last Rolo.
It's probably been a decade since I've eaten a Rolo let alone been offered one. That combined with watching Heston's Fantastical Food* last night where he made the world's biggest 99 ice-cream got me thinking about other old school foodie things I used to do but don't do anymore:

Lipstick M&M

My 1st lipstick was painting my lips with the colour that came off red M&Ms

Wearing Hula Hoops as ring

On all 10 fingers of course, before eating

Sucking Wotsits

The game here is to suck them into nothingness - no munching allowed

Salt & Shake crisps

Saving the salt packets and not adding them to the crisps just because...

Peeling a Twix

Eating all the chocolate off, then the caramel and being left with just the long biscuit base 

Strawberry lace plaits

They taste even better when you thicken them up by plaiting single strands together.

Trans-form-a snack

Can't believe they are now 30p! Anyway back in the day I had the patience to turn them into cars before eating.

Maryland cookies

I used to sandwich them between ice-cream - esp mint choc chip - though too lazy to today, biccies are now for dipping in tea and ice cream eaten for dessert!

Oh dear... this started as a fun reminiscing post, now it's turned into me feeling old. Better stop there then!

*Blatantly inspired by Pimp That Snack

Death by chocolate...I've just experienced it

No this is not a giant flake cake from Pimp That Snack!, it is Nigella's Quadrauple Chocolate cake, baked last night by my friend Janine and 15 hours on from eating a 1/4  of it, I am still experiencing the after effects. I can honestly say I have never in my life had such a chocolate overload and I have had a lot of chocolate!


One time at university I  took part in a paid experiment where over the course of two weeks I had to eat chocolate until I had my fill every day at an allotted time AND I worked a Mars for a a few months where I ate free chocolate every day (the joy of a freshly cooked Bounty bar...hmmm those where the days.)

Yet this monster was the most indulgent thing I've ever eaten, especially as I went in for two slices...

It's quadrauple because it's made of cocoa and chocolate chips, and is then drizzled in chocolate sauce and topped with flaked chocolate. Inside it was so moist is was almost like drinking melted chocolate. 


As for experiencing death by chocolate it actually felt my body was made of chocolate, like I was a living breathing chocolate statue (I could barely move!). I haven't been able to eat anything since then and normally I can't function without breakfast. While I was asleep I could even feel my body expanding....but it was soooooo worth it, words can't describe how delicious it was and I call myself a writer....the irony is we halved the ingredients in her recipe to make it smaller and yet it was still so ridiculously rich and tasty.


Presently I cannot imagine ever eating chocolate again, I'm sure I've had at least a year's supply in one go and I'm still feeling like my blood has turned into chocolate milkshake.


If you consider yourself to be a chocoholic, you must try this recipe, there's no two ways about it!!

Hmmmm, teatime!

When my friend Johnathan invited me around for 'Sunday Lunch on a Saturday' I was determined to keep up with his culinary expertise and produce something equally as stunning for dessert. It gave me a chance to finally try out the recipe in the Hummingbird Cookbook that has been taunting me for a year. The Raspberry Cheesecake Brownie looks amazing in the pictures but the trouble is I hate recipes. I just can't follow them. But I tried my absolute best and something amazing was created - although true to form, I didn't stick to the recipe, there were a few strays....

What you need:

200g melted plain chocolate (1 whole bar)

200g melted unsalted butter

500g icing sugar (1 whole box!)

5 eggs

110g plain flour

400g cream cheese (2 pots)

teaspoon of vanilla extract

300ml whipping cream (2 pots)

2 punnets of raspberries

Start by mixing and whisking up 1/2 box of sugar and the butter until it's lovely and smooth. I found melting the butter in advance which the book didn't suggest a much easier option.

Next beat in 3 eggs, add one at a time. This was my first mishap, I added all 5 eggs at once : (

Then melt the chocolate by breaking into pieces and placing in a heatproof container over a pan of boiling water. Add it to the mixture and stir well. Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper and then pour the mixture on top.

Next make the cheesecake layer. Beat the cheesecake mixture with 2 eggs (this meant my dessert ended up with 7 eggs in total!!) Mix in 150g sugar, again I didn't notice this and added the remaining 1/2 box by mistake.......

Pour it ontop of the brownie and bake at 150 degrees or gas mark 3 for 40 minutes until set.

Allow to cool and then put in fridge overnight.

In the morning whisk 1 punnet of raspberries into the cream until it's lovely and thick. The recipe suggested adding 100g of sugar here but as i'd already added it to the cheese I left it out, the sharpness of the raspberries went well with the sweeter base. Then place it in fridge until it's needed and top with raspberries to decorate. It produced over 20 slices!

The verdict???????? Well only one person asked for a second slice but then again we also had a lovely lemon drizzle cake and the main was so good there wasn't much space for pud. But I was proud...if you look closely below you can see the coloured layers.

This morning I had some leftovers, they were quite stodgy but still very tasty and I feel less mystified about the whole following a recipe malarky.

On another notes I LOVED the Blacksmiths episode of Mastercrafts, it was my favourite to date, the gates they produced were really impressive, they were all worthy winners : )

Hmm! Chocolate!

This may look like a piece of jewellery but it is actually a Strawberry and White chocolate lolly from Hotel Chocolat. My sister gave it to me as a present in October but it was so lovely to look at I decided not to eat it and kept it as an ornament instead. Do you ever do that? Just keep things on display when they should be used?

I picked up the lolly today and saw that the 'best before date' was just a few hours away and I remembered a couple of Easters ago I resisted some chocolate animals I was given because they were so sweet to look at. Eventually they went mouldy.

So I made a decision, these two love birds are too pretty to go mouldy so I gobbled the lolly up and it was extremely tasty!!

It's such a beautiful mould and has got me thinking about the craft of chocolate making. I'm not sure if I could do it, I'm far better at crafting with fabric than with edible ingredients.

I think the same sister who got me the lolly question has those genes.

She recently did a chocolate making course and came up with these sensational and scrumptious designs. (And yes I did get to try them and they were lush!) I know they look like mini cakes but they are actually handmade chocolates!

(Ok this picture is here again but blogger is being a pain and having trouble deleting it, still nevermind, it's a good picture!)

While I'm on the subject of the brown stuff, I heard a rumour this week that apparently Cadbury's Creme Eggs are only made once a year, in January, and so the best time to eat them is now when they are at their freshest. Needless to say I have been sucked in my this publicity stunt and also had my first one of the year today. Bliss!