Easter eggs, why is it so hard to find a simple milk chocolate egg?

Today’s column in The Observer talks about simple milk chocolate eggs. The sort one could find a-plenty when I was a child. I remember the moulds were nearly always ‘crazy paving’ or tortoise-shell design and I can still see - and smell - them. I’d be particularly excited about the base of the egg which tended to be tooth-joltingly thick.

If you were lucky you’d get some miniature eggs (Mini Eggs were around but just not as ubiquitous as they are now) inside. Largely, however, Easter eggs were just milk or plain as I say in the column.

When my friend Kate asked me where she could find ‘simple milk chocolate eggs that are, preferably, ethical’ I honestly thought “gosh how lazy can you be to not be able to just look?” (Sorry Kate.) But actually they’re not overly easy to find. With any confidence I found Pump Street and Bare Bones - as mentioned in the column.

This doesn’t mean there aren’t ethical chocolate makers that make great milk chocolate. There are. But the smaller makers tend not to make Easter Eggs as they need moulds, they break on delivery (“I HATE Easter eggs” one told me “they are tricky to make and then break and people want their money back”). Those that do tend to flavour/adorn them so you see how the cross over on the Venn diagram was getting smaller and smaller.

Next week I’m covering what may be the most delicious egg that is the opposite of today’s column insofar as it has inclusions a-hoy. Plus some supermarket favourites.