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!

Paul A. Young, Islington, N1

These are some of the most scrumptious chocolates you’ll find in London. The chocolatier in question is Paul A. Young. He has two shops in London- one at the Royal Exchange in Bank and one down Camden passage in Angel. I was introduced to his chocolates by my brother Matthew whose housemate had sampled one of his Taylor's Tawny Port and Colsten Basset Stilton’s creations and knew he was onto something special.

A glass box at the back of the shop houses weird and wonderful combinations such as Marmite truffles, a limited edition Penhaligon’s perfume inspired ganache and sea-salted caramels (my favourite) which explode in the mouth.

Alongside the side walls little gift boxes are stacked high with more favourites, piles of brownies, white and dark mice and an obligatory tasting bowl. Winking at you in the corner but overwhelming visitors with its smell is a cauldron of rich hot chocolate which you can embellish with spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg or chilli for a taste of the Aztec.

I picked up a box (top) for Mother’s Day for a surprise trip down on Sunday. I got the surprise as she’d already persuaded my brother to take her to the shop the day before and picked up twice as many!

Valentine's cook-off

While Britney Spears dined out on a drive-thru Maccie D's with her beau on Valentine's Day, this year Robert and I set to work in the kitchen.

I love it when you create a delicious meal out of remarkably ugly ingredients. Celeriac or 'knob celery' as it is also known (apparently), is just that. I was keen to take advantage of the celeriac that is still in season so decided to cook Jamie Oliver's potato, celeriac and truffle oil soup.

Truffle oil is great, it makes an average risotto or mash feel really indulgent and it's available in most decent supermarkets these days so is relatively easy to get hold of. I was in Borough market on Saturday morning so picked up a bottle of white truffle oil (it has a more pungent smell than the black variety) from one of the stalls for seven quid.

I was fairly daunted by the celeriac as I've never prepared one before but it was pretty simple- you just take to it with a knife, cut off all the tough brownish exterior, then chop it up like a potato and boil until tender. The soup used chicken stock, floury potatoes and a sprig of thyme which had to be boiled up and simmered for about 40 minutes before liquidising. Some double cream and about 5 tablespoons of the truffle oil and the soup was done. I think Jersualem artichokes would be a good alternative if you don't like celeriacs so that's my next experiment.

Rob covered off the main, we had pulled shoulder of pork which was scored, rubbed thoroughly with salt and pepper and roasted for about 7 hours- it literally fell off the bone and had the perfect crackling!

I had planned to make some chocolate fondants after being inspired by a recent cookery evening with work but decided it might be a bit over-kill after eating half a hog so compromised with some truffles.

I used a recipe of 170g of green and blacks chocolate, a tin of evaporated butter, some butter and crushed digestives. After I was making the finishing touches to the chocs with a dusting of cocoa i saw a bag of amaretti biscuits which I think would have made them a bit more interesting- next time. These went down well at work but aesthetically weren't pretty, they looked like giant animal droppings. I found them a bit rich (funny that, with all the butter and 2 bars of chocolate!) and a bit too biscuity. I'd was hoping they'd have a creamy ganache texture so will ease off the biscuits next time but they weren't bad for a first attempt and tasted better fresh out of the fridge.