The History of Easter Eggs and Where to Find the Best

With Easter fast approaching, I’m spending more time than usual thinking about chocolate, which quite frankly is a great pastime. I can’t be the only one as the average Brit consumes around 8.5kg (17lb) of chocolate a year, with a quarter of us eating it daily. 10% of all chocolate consumption is at Easter, with the purchase of 80 million Easter eggs, so when did this egg obsession start, and which are the best to buy?

History of Chocolate

To answer that question, we need to look back to when chocolate was introduced to this country, in its liquid form, in the seventeenth century from Spain. Here it was initially met with a huge dollop of scepticism, associated with the perceived popishness and idleness of the Europeans. However, the Quakers were onto this, as they wanted to promote this drink as an alternative to alcohol and claimed it would boost fertility, cure consumption, alleviate indigestion and reverse ageing: a mere lick, it was said, would ‘make old women young and fresh’ – they would have certainly tempted me. Amazingly these names of these original Quaker families survive to this day: Fry, Cadbury and Rowntree.

History of Eggs at Easter

In the meantime, eggs have been associated with Easter for centuries, from pagan pre-Christian times, when the egg signified Spring and new life associated with it. In medieval times eggs would have been painted and decorated during lent, and then eaten at Easter. This survived the centuries and in the eighteenth-century papier-mâché eggs with gifts inside were made.

The most famous decorated Easter Eggs are those made by Fabergé. In 1885 the Tsar of Russia instructed Fabergé to make an Easter gift for his wife, and they were so impressed by the result, that they commissioned further eggs to be made and delivered every Easter, a tradition continued by their son. In 2013 an unaccounted-for Fabergé Egg was found in a scrap metal yard in the USA and went on to sell for $20 million.

Mix Them Together

The chocolate Easter Egg was first made in England shortly after the first chocolate bar in the nineteenth century, however it wasn’t until Cadbury’s came up with Dairy Milk Chocolate in 1905 that the market really exploded. Cadbury’s today still produce the most popular Easter Egg, the Crème Egg, with the ability to produce 1.5 million of them a day, totalling 500 million produced per year, with a third being exported overseas. How do you eat yours?

But, although I could tuck away a dozen crème eggs at a push, there are some other amazing eggs on offer at the moment, and below are some of my favourites.

My Top Picks

Prestat Creamy Milk Chocolate Easter Egg with Assorted Truffles
This delicious shop was the favourite of Roald Dahl of Willie Wonka fame, and also provides an Easter egg annually to her Majesty the Queen, so it comes highly recommended! The Queen mother in fact influenced the bright brand colours, and I’m a sucker for a pretty box, so this one definitely gets my vote!

Rococo, The Veggie Chocolate Egg
A truly clever vegan Easter Egg, half the chocolate egg is flavoured with tomato and the other beetroot, and it’s full of mini chocolate veggies with sweetcorn, spinach and carrot flavours. Definitely something a little different!

Fortnum & Mason Easter Praline Scotch Egg
As you may have guessed, I love a little history with my food! Fortnum & Mason created the original savoury scotch egg in 1738 as a portable meal for travellers, and it has since become a national treasure. Now we have the sweet version, with a hazelnut crust, praline inner and orange centre. Yum!

Heston for Waitrose, 4 Chocolate Hen’s Eggs
Heston always gets me a little bit excited with his mix of food and micro-chemistry, and this Easter he hasn’t disappointed! These beguiling tricksters have the appearance of genuine eggs, so I’m going to serve these up to my kids in egg cups on Easter morning and watch their delight when they realise it’s a sweet chocolate and banoffee breakfast…