Easter is upon us and for me that means eating lots of peeps (my favorite color is purple and I prefer them left out for a day or so and a little bit stale) and jelly beans, but best of all that means its time for chocolate peanut butter eggs! Growing up, my mother made them every year around Easter, they have always been a special treat in my family. The egg recipe itself is fairly simple and requires no baking but because you must make them in stages and refrigerate, I give myself two days to complete the recipe.

This year I mentioned the eggs to a friend who told me that she uses her grandmother’s original recipe, complete with yellowed, crinkled paper and all. I love family recipes, they are always filled with love and get better with each generation. She mentioned that she puts paraffin wax into her chocolate before coating her eggs because it is supposed to make the eggs shinier and smoother. I have never heard of or used wax in my chocolate but decided to find out if there was any truth to what she was saying.

I began researching paraffin wax on the internet and found quite a few opinions on its use in chocolate. People either swear by it or tell you it’s not actually eddible and not to use it. Upon further research and after finding no recorded cases of parrafin wax poisoning or wax related death, I decided to perform an experiment; half of my eggs would be dipped in chocolate without wax (the way I and my family have always done it) and the other half would be dipped in chocolate that had a bit of wax melted in.

I began the process yesterday, making the peanut butter filling and shaping the eggs. You need to allow a full night in the fridge to insure that the peanut butter sets and firms up. To make the filling, all you do is throw the ingredients together and mix with an electric mixer. I like to mix the peanut butter, softened butter, cream cheese and vanilla together first and then slowly add the powdered sugar and a pinch of salt.  Add more powdered sugar or more peanut butter after all is mixed according to how you want the filling to taste. In my case, this year I added more peanut butter because it just didn’t taste strong enough to me.

Once everthing is mixed, clear out a large space in your fridge, big enough for a baking sheet and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Mold the filling with your hands into “egg like” shapes. Some people prefer to make peanut butter balls instead of eggs because it’s easier to roll the dough between your hands, I like the “egg” shape because it’s bigger, though I must admit they don’t really look like eggs. I won’t mention what they end up looking like, use your imagination. Anyway, form the dough and place on the baking sheet and refrigerate overnight.

The following day, begin by melting the chocolate over a double boiler. I make my own double boiler using a medium metal mixing bowl placed inside a medium saucepan filled about 2 inches with water. Double boilers can be expensive so make one if you have the ability, sometimes two saucepans will even fit inside one another. The point of the double boiler is to prevent you from burning the chocolate; melting chocolate is very tempermental. You must make sure that whatever you melt the chocolate in is completely dry and don’t use a wooden spoon that you just washed; any amount of water will ruin the melting chocolate completely and dry it out. If you must add something to thin your chocolate always use oil or butter, never water.

As far as melting chocolate, I buy Wilbur’s (a local chocolate factory) milk chocolate wafers. You must buy chocolate that is specifically for candy making, chocolate chips or melted chocolate bars won’t work.

Put your double boiler over low heat and pour some chocolate in. It will slowly begin to melt, give it time and don’t turn the heat up. Once the chocolate is melting add enough wafers so the chocolate will cover the entire egg when you drop it in. Be sure that you keep your eggs in the fridge this whole time, you want to wait until the last possible second to take them out so that they don’t being to soften or melt.

I like to take about 10 eggs out of the fridge at a time to coat, this keeps them cold and easier to work with. I use a large serving fork and a dinner fork to dip the eggs and pull them out which allows the excess chocolate to drip off easily. Working in batches I coated 1/2 of my eggs, being sure to stir the chocolate and add more if needed between each egg. Lay the coated eggs on a clean piece of parchment paper, on a new baking sheet and place in the refrigerator when it’s full.

After my paraffin wax research, I concluded that I would add a 1 inch cube of the wax to the chocolate and threw it in to melt with more chocolate wafers.  I then dipped the second half of my eggs from the fridge. I noticed that the chocolate was in fact shinier and a bit smoother to work with, though that could also have been due to the fact that I added fresh chocolate wafers.

You can decide for yourself, here are the results of my expariment. First I compared them visually and then was the taste test, I was warned not to use too much wax for fear of the egg actually tasting waxy, imagine eating a chocolate candle… OK here is side by side shot of the eggs, can you tell which one is which?

Yes, they look virtually the same but if you guessed the one on the left was the one with wax, then you’re correct. Here’s a shot of them cut open.

The eggs tasted exactly the same but if you were really looking for it, the egg with the wax was a but firmer when you bit into it and did not melt as quickly in our hand. Both were rich and delicious, be sure to have a drink handy. My eggs could have used a bit more peanut butter but the filling is so smooth and creamy that it still tasted great. I liked the smoother and crunchier chocolate shell and may add the paraffin wax permanently to my recipe. I ended up making a bigger difference than I thought, Eric even said the chocolate was less grainy.

While researching the wax technique, I also found some recipes that recommended the use of a bit of Crisco instead of the wax, they claimed it had the same result. I didn’t get a chance to test that method out, but there’s always next Easter!

This recipe (minus the wax) is from my mother:

Chocolate Peanut Butter Eggs

Peanut Butter Filling Ingredients:

• 8oz. Softened cream cheese
• 1 stick unsalted butter
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 8-10 oz. peanut butter
• Pinch of salt
• 1.5 lbs of confectioners sugar

Chocolate coating:

• 2 lbs Milk Chocolate Wafers
• 1 inch cube paraffin wax (optional)

Preparation:

Mix cream cheese, butter, vanilla, peanut butter and pinch of salt with an electric mixer until smooth. Slowly add confectioners sugar and mix until well combined and creamy (add more peanut butter as needed, to taste). Form into egg shapes and and place on parchment paper lined baking sheet. Chill in refrigerator overnight.

Melt the chocolate over a double boiler over low heat, add cube of paraffin wax if desired and melt completely. Dip each egg into chocolate until covered, pull out and place back onto parchment lined baking sheet. Chill until desired temperature. Eggs will last up to two weeks in regrigerator. Recipe makes about 30 eggs.