Sunday, June 7, 2009

Homemade Chocolate Ideas for Easter

Every chocolate lover gets excited around Easter because no Easter celebration would be complete without lots of chocolate. You can make the Easter holiday much more personal and save a lot of money on Easter baskets if you make your own homemade chocolate treats for Easter.

Since nearly everyone goes overboard and eats too much chocolate during the Easter holiday it’s a good idea to make low calorie, low fat, or sugar free chocolate during Easter. That way you can eat the same amount of candy but you’ll be eating fewer calories and less fat, and so will your kids.

Here are some ideas that you can use to make your own homemade chocolates for Easter:

  • Put your own twist on classic chocolate bunnies by using exotic chocolates or an unusual chocolate base like chocolate mixed with spices or fruit to make chocolate bunnies.

  • Make edible homemade chocolate baskets instead of chocolate bunnies, then arrange other holiday treats inside the basket. To make a chocolate Easter basket melt some base chocolate in a plastic bag and blow up a small balloon. Put the balloon inside the bag of melted chocolate until the bottom half of the balloon is thickly coated with chocolate and then immediately move the balloon to the refrigerator.

  • Once the chocolate hardens pop the balloon and pull the balloon out and you’ll have a solid chocolate Easter basket that you can use for your kids or as a holiday table centerpiece. You can even use white chocolate as a base and dye it with food coloring to make your chocolate baskets in different colors. Be careful though! The chocolate will melt if left out in the warm weather.

  • If you want to cut down on the amount of sugar that your kids will be eating during the Easter holiday make a chocolate dipping sauce and then cut fruit into Easter shapes and dip the fruit into the chocolate. Once the chocolate hardens your kids will have a sweet holiday treat with a lot less sugar and calories.

  • Instead of decorating hard boiled eggs in pretty colors make some dark chocolate eggs and use candy coloring to pain the chocolate eggs the way that you would paint traditional hard boiled eggs.

  • Most Easter candies are made from milk chocolate so stay away from using milk chocolate in your homemade Easter candy bases and use something more exotic to make your homemade chocolate stand out more.