Easter eggs have come a long way from just being multi- coloured marzipan or chocolate-based, as bakers and confectioners get more innovative every year
PRADNYA GAONKAR
Eggs come in many sizes,
Eggs hold some big surprises.
And indeed, this nursery rhyme acquires an altogether new meaning around Easter time, as bakers and confectioners compete to come up with the most innovative and surprising Easter egg flavour and designs. From the traditional marzipan Easter eggs, bakers and confectioners have now moved on to chocolate eggs with variety of flavours, designs and most importantly surprises for the kids. And who wouldn’t like one?
And it’s not just limited to the exterior presentation. Artists also try to play with the flavours, the stuffing and include some surprises for the kids.
“I wanted to breakaway from the traditional marzipan Easter eggs and bring innovations with my chocolate making art. Instead of making a whole solid chocolate Easter egg, I use assorted chocolate flavours and insert a small gift toy inside. Also, instead of going for plain eggs and bunnies, I like to introduce new characters like hedgehogs etc which are cute and attractive. I don’t repeat my designs and give my customers a range of options to go for. Customers like the idea of gifting hampers to their near and dear ones and I provide them with a variety of assorted flavours in chocolates,” says Arti Nagvekar of Arti’san Foods. Nagvekar has been into chocolate making for past two years and has tried to bring in various flavours and designs with chocolates not just for Easter but throughout the year as per the orders.
At MOG Cake Studio and all things good, the latest trending theme for kid’s parties is chosen as the theme for Easter eggs every year. “We want our clients to know us as a brand that is innovative and that is the very reason we go for creating something new every year. We started the cake studio in Goa 5 years ago and innovations continue. Last year we chose Avengers as the theme for our Easter eggs and a year before that was time for some other super heroes. We had five different types of chocolates,” says Brainard Colaco who runs the studio. “This year, we were quiet inspired by models made by Italian clay artist Egan which are really cute. We have made these designs into Easter eggs using dark and white chocolates. We do marzipan Easter eggs too but with imported almond marzipan and not the traditional cashew marzipan.”
Innovations become all the more important especially considering the easily available tutorials on Youtube which often encourage people to just try making the eggs themselves at home. The key to staying relevant and in demand thus is to bring something different, attractive at the same time live up to to the expectations of the customers and the maintain the quality of the product. Given that the target audience is mostly kids, bakers tend to add a few kid surprises in their offerings too.
“This year we wanted to give more texture and the colour of the chocolate. We have used a high end quality chocolate with strawberry, mango, dark, milk and white chocolates. For kids, there are surprise gifts in the form of edible toys placed inside eggs,” informs Daphne Dias of Cafe Brews and Bakes, Margao which is specialised in wedding cakes and has been in business for the past 6 years. “It’s like a pinocle where you break it and it opens up to reveal a surprise gift hidden within. With marzipan it is difficult to come up with these ideas and kids love chocolates,” says Dias.
On one occasion, we found that the parents didn’t even understand some of the characters made with these Easter eggs and the child persuades the parents to buy it. If it’s something new in the market which is trending, kids definitely like to go for it,” adds Colaco.
With the upsurge on social media through various Facebook groups promoting their creations, the artists have now been able to market their products to customers across the country. “We also ship these eggs across the country in places like Delhi, Chennai etc. Our clients place the orders online and we have to keep our batches ready to reach them on time. Most of the times, the goodies are over by Easter eve,” says Colaco. Cafe Brews and Bakes informs that more number of orders are coming from various corporate houses every year. So living upto the expectations of these clients becomes more important.
