Easter - who said it was just for kids?

Who doesn’t love a Cadbury Crème Egg? Well, loads of people as it turns out, but I am not one of them. When I was a child, the whole idea of a CCE was made even sweeter (if that is possible) because of the parental disapproval that accompanied their consumption. Not just chocolate, but oozing fondant as well, it was a parent’s and dentist’s and nutritionist’s nightmare. Nightmare or not, the CCE Wikipedia entry tells me that they are produced at the rate of 1.5 million per day in Cadbury’s Bournville factory. I am not the only one, it seems, who delights in this sweet treat.

So when a challenge was put forward to create a recipe involving a CCE, I thought it would be fun to get involved. The symbolism of Easter also worked well for me – time to resurrect the ol’ blog – especially as one of the criteria was that the recipe needed to be posted by Easter Sunday.

So, my tribute is a grown-up spin on the taste of my childhood; still sticky and sweet, still a tooth-shocking mouthful, still an indulgence, still bad for you but still so good. Here is the Cadbury Crème Egg shooter:

I was concerned to get the flavours as close to a real CCE as possible. There had to be chocolate, there had to be something approximating fondant. It had to look like a CCE as well as taste like one.

The advocaat was a no-brainer for the yolk. The colour and consistency of the scented egg liqueur was just what I needed. There had to be chocolate too. I knew the Cadburys actually does its own liqueur – Cadbury Crème Liqueur, and I did have a good hunt around for that. However, it was not to be found which was disappointing as it would have been so perfect. I ended up buying some Crème de Cacao instead. 

This left just the ‘egg white’ to find. I had thought at first that I would use white Crème de Cacao, but when I got to the bottle shop, my eye was immediately drawn to the bottle of Sheridans and the pure white of the ‘cream’ side. It was too good a match to go past.

At home, a bit of experimenting proved that the Crème de Cacao had to go first, then the advocaat, then the white cream. I didn’t have any shot glasses in the house (I know! What is wrong with me???) but an old-fashioned sherry glass yielded a pleasing egg-like shape and I was delighted with the result.

And what did it taste like? It tasted  like a CCE - with a kick. It was just a rich and sweet - more genuinely eggy because of the advocaat but still as gooey and sinful, perhaps more so because of the booze.

 Flash on. It's crude, I know, but it shows the layers more clearly.

However, I was aware that I hadn’t actually used a Cadbury Crème Egg in my recipe so just to take it one step further, I hollowed out a CCE that I had to hand, and filled it with the same 3 liqueurs. I have to admit that this idea was inspired by recent photographs I had seen of a “Bunny Alexander” cocktail ( a brandy Alexander served up in a Lindt Gold Bunny). The result was a much smaller shooter but with the reward of eating the chocolate shell afterwards.

 Almost indistinguishable from the real thing...until you drink it!

If you would like to check out some other interpretations on the theme, then there's a savoury option offered by Blue Apocalypse on her blog and a sweeter-than-sweet CCE pavlova made by Eatmeetswest on hers.

 It was a fun challenge and, with luck, the start of a new life for this blog. I'm all about coming back from the dead. Let's hope it lasts! Happy Easter, everyone!