Oeufs

I love this photo as it neatly encapsulates my Easter weekend. It's reminiscent of a priest distributing communion during Easter Day mass but with a slight twist as amongst my family chocolate is considered the most important sacrament.

This year, our family convened in Birmingham as my elder brother Ben and his wife Theresa-Marie hosted us for Easter. Lunch was rib of beef with all the trimmings, cheeses and tarte tartin, courtesy of Jen followed by a choco-blow out with coffee that left Matthew requiring Gaviscon soon after.

The William Curley egg which I had bought last weekend was excellent. I thought I had broken it in transit as it gave a distinct rattle but that turned out to be the salted caramels inside which we cooed over when the shell was broken. The caramels tasted of burnt sugar, not as sexual and oozingly salty as Paul Young's caramels but still very moreish. The egg itself was thinner than expected and though delicious, were it not for the surprise inside I'm not sure I'd pay the same price again for it.

Matthew had bought a Paul Young egg which was doused in iridescent copper sparkle that clung to your fingers just as the cocoa did. The chocolate was a lot thicker and richer, you could almost taste the raw bean.

My favourite egg for the third year running was Ben's purchase from Chouchoute which had a hexagonal honeycomb shape carved all over it. Chouchoute is based locally and is (almost) worth moving to the Midlands for. I imagine chocolate critics would say the chocolate would appeal to less sophisticated palettes as it is a lot sweeter but for me chocolate doesn't get much classier than this!