Chocolate-Filled Delights

Imagine the surprise of friends who open these hard-boiled look-alikes to find them filled with chocolate. Give yourself time to make these; they need sufficient drying and hardening before they can be enjoyed.

Ingredients

• Newspaper
• Blown eggs , as many as desired, sterilized and dry, with egg cartons to hold them all
• Wooden skewers
• Long, narrow block of Styrofoam
• Stiff, flat 1/2-inch-wide paintbrush
• Brown food coloring (mix red and green if you don’t have brown)
• Masking tape
• Small needle-nose pliers
• Baking chips, white, milk, and dark chocolate flavors, 1 cup per egg
• Plastic food storage bags, 1 gallon size

Preparation

1. Spatter each egg: If you wish, cover your worktable with newspaper. Slide the eggs onto skewer on a Styrofoam drying rack (see tip, below). Dip the paintbrush in the food coloring, hold it in one hand above the egg and run your thumb along the bristles or tap the handle to create a spray of paint. Revolve each egg to splatter the entire surface. Allow the eggs to dry for several hours.

2. Seal the hole in the wider end of each blown egg with a small piece of masking tape. Using the pliers, gently chip away the shell around the other hole, enlarging it to the size of a pea. Place the eggs in an egg carton, open-end up.

3. One at a time, fill the eggs with chocolate: Place 1 cup of the baking chips in a food storage bag and twist the bag like a pastry bag to secure the chips in one bottom corner. Microwave on medium for 1 minute, until soft. Snip the corner from the bag and pipe the chocolate into the egg, tapping the egg periodically to compress any air bubbles and filling it completely, to the top of the hole.

4. Refrigerate the eggs overnight so the chocolate is firm. Remove the masking tape. Store in the refrigerator if not eating soon.

5. Tap the eggs on the table to crack the shells, and peel. Yum.

Tips: — Be patient! Don’t try to melt more than 1 cup of chocolate at a time—the chocolate consistency may change and it will cool too quickly to fill multiple eggs.
• To create a rack to hold the eggs while they're being painted or drying: Cut wooden skewers into 7-inch lengths. Insert them into a block of Styrofoam, spacing them 2 to 3 inches apart so you can support a blown egg on each without the eggs touching and arranging them in a single line so you can access each egg from all sides. To use the rack, remove the skewers, insert each into an egg, angling the egg a bit so the top of the skewer supports the shell and doesn't go through the top hole, paint the egg, and then reinsert the skewer into the foam.