You might have seen in the news last week that Creme Egg sales have fallen after a recipe change.
According to The Grocer magazine and analyst IRI, sales of Creme Eggs fell by £6 million last year after the recipe was changed to a cheaper alternative.
Cadbury's owner, Mondelez, said that the fall of sales had nothing to do with this and said that “the fundamentals of Cadbury Creme Egg remain exactly the same”.
Well, never fear: This Morning showed us how to make Creme Eggs at home that taste like the old recipe, according to chocolatier Paul Young.
A warning: I am not a good baker. I once tried baking every single technical challenge from Bake Off.
Let's just say I had mixed results. And no, stop asking me, that is not kale on the left.
However, this Creme Egg recipe had few ingredients and looked straightforward, so I thought that it wouldn't be hard to make at home.
Problem one: I realised that I had bought fondant icing sugar, NOT fondant icing, so I acted instinctively and pretended that I didn't realise.
And as the recipe was on This Morning, I had a picture of Phillip Schofield nearby to inspire me.
I started. I broke and melted the chocolate in the pan thingy until my flat smelled like Cadbury World.
However, it then got confusing because the recipe told me to "pour two-thirds of the chocolate on to a large marble surface". I didn't have a large marble surface or, come to think about it, any thick surface.
So I put it on some paper and did it on the floor.
I was then told by my partner that our underfloor heating was on so the chocolate wouldn't solidify, so I moved the baking experience from the warm kitchen to the cold bathroom.
When the mixture was nearly solid, I mixed it with some more melted chocolate in my possession and carefully put it into these moulds.
I then made the yellow Creme Egg mixture, which is basically a fuckload of icing sugar and food colouring.
So I intricately carved a filling out like this.
All I needed to do was add the yellow and white filling.
And alas, 15 minutes later.
I tweeted how happy I was now that it was over.
Here are my six finished Creme Eggs. What a fucking waste of time.
What was on This Morning is on the left of this picture. What I made is on the right of this picture.
Yes, if I had a mould it would have looked a bit more like an egg, but still, it looks quite shite.
There was also an awful lot of Creme Egg mixture left over, and I didn't know what to do with it.
Creme Egg update: we can't put the leftover mixture down the sink because it might block it so we're putting it down the toilet
Half an hour later, an update.
After much consideration we have not put it down the toilet
I then took the Creme Eggs to work and presented them on a kitchen table for my colleagues to try.
I then read the feedback, and holy hell, the responses were actually really quite surprisingly positive.
But which tastes better? Cadbury's Creme Eggs or my ones? Introducing colleagues Rachael and Ellie.
A Cadbury's Creme Egg was given to them first.
And then they tasted one of my Creme Eggs.
Perspex bowl + mixing bowl + chocolate + food colouring + icing sugar + spoons + two hours trying to find the right mould + cupcake mould = £37.64.
Meanwhile at my local Tesco...
So even though it tastes as good as the real thing, don't bother. Especially if you have underfloor heating.
