Candy Bejeweled Eggs

At Easter, many kids get a basket full of candy, but it’s much more fun (and easier on the tooth enamel) to make something out of the goods from Peter Cottontail, rather than just snarfing it all.

Give this crafty candy construction a try with your surplus of Easter candy, and keep your kids entertained too!

Candy Bejeweled Eggs

What You’ll Need

• Cream-filled chocolate eggs (such as Cadbury Creme Egg)
• Vanilla Mortar (see below) or 1 can store-bought white frosting
• Large chocolate disks (such as Droste) or chocolate squares (such as Ghirardelli), one for each decorated egg
• Sour tape (you can also use gum strips here but sour tape is covered in glistening sugar)
• Mini jelly beans or mini chocolate chips
• Any small round or shiny candy, such as silver and gold dragees or candy pearls

What to Do

1. Unwrap the egg and a chocolate disk or square to serve as the display base. Cover the egg with mortar and perch it on the base, balancing it on the large end.
2. Cut a length of sour tape long enough to go around the egg lengthwise, then use scissors to divide the tape in half all along the length. (You will have two long, narrow lengths of sour tape.) Wrap one around the egg, starting at the base (you can lift it off the chocolate base), following the seam along the side of the egg, and ending back under the bottom of the egg. Wrap the other strip the same way, dividing the egg into four lengthwise quarters with the sour tape. Don’t worry if you get your fingers in the frosting, you can smooth it out once the egg is back down on its chocolate base.
3. If you like, you can divide the egg again around the middle by wrapping a narrow strip of sour tape around the equator of the egg.
4. Now, decorate! Working within each quarter (or eighth) of the frosted and wrapped egg, press on jelly beans and other candy, making patterns and swirls, just like the jewels on a Fabergé egg. You can make monochromatic eggs with all one color, or make wildly colorful confections of all different sorts. Shiny dragees are particularly jewel-like.
5. For other eggs, vary the type and amount of sour tape used:
   • You might want to skip the horizontal band, or only apply the first sour strip and decorate the egg in two halves.
   • You can also lay the egg on its side on the base and decorate it horizontally, with sour strips across the top half only.
   • For some eggs, you could dye the frosting a rich blue or glowing yellow, using paste food coloring.
   • Whatever you do, don’t skimp on the candy. Every inch of your egg’s surface should glow with goodies.

Vanilla Mortar

This basic buttercream is useful for nearly every candy construction project. You can make it thicker by adding less, or no, liquid. Store extra frosting (tightly covered) in the fridge for up to two weeks. Makes about 3 cups.

What You’ll Need
    ½    cup (1 stick) butter, at room temperature
    4     cups confectioners’ sugar (a 1-pound box)
    1     teaspoon vanilla
    2–3     tablespoons whole milk or cream

What to Do
Beat the butter with an electric mixer until smooth. Gradually add the sugar, beating until absorbed, then beat in the vanilla. If the frosting is too thick, add the milk or cream, a few teaspoons at a time, until it reaches the consistency you prefer.

Note for Mortar Recipe:
It helps to begin with a super-thick mortar that you thin out for decorating after the main construction is done.

Excerpt from Candy Construction © 2010 by Sharon Parrish Bowers
Photograph by © Kevin Kennfick
All rights reserved