So we made an omelette.

You’re probably thinking that omelettes are one of the least Metal foodstuffs in existence. But this was no ordinary omelette. Spawned from the brains of the confectionary geniuses responsible for making “Smarties Cereal” and “Bill Bailey’s Giant Kit-Kat” a reality, this was to be a rather special “Creme Egg² Omelette”.

Debate was held as to whether the whole egg should be used, or whether a more authentic scooping of innards and discarding of “shell” would be more appropriate. However, this became largely academic when Tesco only had Creme Egg bars left at 11:30 on a Saturday night.

Whilst Delia doesn’t recommend using milk in an omelette, she’s probably never tried making one out of 1 1/2 creme eggs left over from Eurovision, 4 creme egg bars, and a couple of bits of Fruit and Nut, so in the milk went.

Whilst making the omelette, it became clear than 4 melted bars of chocolate (plus squirty cream for consistency) was not going to satisfy 3 people’s hunger, so a second, more traditional omelette was prepared, courtesy of Sina’s Eggs.

Eggy bread also made an appearance, on account of it being delicious.

Both resulting omelettes were quite delicious, if a little salty/full of squirty cream.

Conclusions: whilst the Creme Egg offering was incredibly tasty, the traditional variant was certainly required for sustenance. This is no doubt why Spanish farmers would traditionally take an omelette made from both normal and Creme eggs to work, incorporating both a main course and a dessert into a single convenient package. Whilst we couldn’t find any photos of Spanish farmers relaxing in their lunch hour, we think they might have looked something like this:

¹ For those not aware of Eurovision, it is an annual contest bringing together the countries of Europe in a singing competition extravaganza, with each country generally entering a relatively unknown artist. (The organisers of the Eurovision Song Contest usually like to take this opportunity to apologise for releasing Celine Dion upon the world). Scoring is by telephone vote in each country, with the 10 highest scoring songs receiving a number of points (up to 12). In practice, some countries regard it as camp entertainment (the UK), some take it incredibly seriously (Scandinavian countries), and voting is partially dictated by politics; countries bordering you give you lots of points, countries you’ve annoyed or invaded during the year give you ‘nul points’. Which makes it even more interesting that NBC have acquired the rights to an American version, with other negotiations ongoing for Canada, Australia, the Middle East, and Africa, potentially resulting in a worldwide contest. With the world split between countries America has invaded, those it’s about to, and those that go along for the ride; where does political voting leave you then?

² Creme Eggs were first introduced as an Easter chocolate in 1971, and since then have appeared for longer and longer on supermarket shelves, and today they are available around 51 weeks a year. They consist of a thick milk chocolate shell and a sickly yellow fondant filling. And are delicious.

The APA Journal of Food Tasting, a sister society to theGDP, had a little too much time on their hands, and a little too much paint left over from badly redecorated rented accommodation.

We lined the eggs up on a small podium (also a bedside table), to make them feel important.

After a tasting, we all scribble furiously, trying to capture the individual and distinctive evocative aroma and taste in words… resulting in such erudite and insightful comments as “mmm, smells chocolatey“. Here at theGDP, only the most eloquent observations make the final cut.
(Notice the palate cleansing crackers in the bottom right hand corner. Essential.)

As recommended by many a chocolate expert, (because, you know, we talked to them all), before tasting the chocolate, inhaling the aroma is just as important. Here we see the scientific measures employed to capture that aroma (note: air purifier and clean room door are just off camera).

No expense spared for the kids of the APA Journal of Food Tasting. Rumour has it that this lettering was actually done in liquid white gold.

After tasting the Green & Black’s egg, the disappointment in the judge’s faces was evident.

Halfway through the proceedings, one of the judges vacates their chair. How unprofessional.
(On a side note, people at Lindt & Sprungli and 22 News recommend tasting no more than 6 different pieces of chocolate in one sitting. With 8 eggs to taste, a split was needed. With the aid of an N64 (note controller in picture) and some Snowboard Kids, a 45 minute break enabled us to regather our senses.)

Some discussion and hand-waving was needed when describing just how bad the Green & Black’s egg was. Seriously. Don’t buy it.

Like any good kids party, we were left with a mess to clean up, and some delightful goody bags to take home and cherish.

Foremost in their mind, one would imagine, is Bede’s goddess Eostre, the etymology of Jakob Grimm’s Eostremonat, the symbolism of eggs as fertility symbols, of new life, and of Mary Magdalene’s exclamation “Christ is risen!”.

The second thought that comes to mind is which of these commercial over-priced packages of pagan symbolism is the tastiest. We are here to guide you through this controversial minefield, taking it upon ourselves to sample the various offerings and report back our findings, ending this minutes-old argument once and for all.

Let us establish some ground rules.

1. The chocolate must, as the title suggests, be in egg form. Little bunnies are cute and delicious, but hardly in keeping with the theme.
2. Only eggs from established chocolatiers are allowed, so Marks&Spencer, Tesco et al. are out. (read: we are poor.)
3. Acknowledging the FACT that Jesus only ate milk chocolate eggs, we ignore dark, white, mint or orange eggs. (read: really, we are poor.)
4. Contrary to appearances, we are not professional chocolate tasters. Thus, we will probably end up preferring the sickly sweet not-legally-allowed-to-call-it-chocolate-in-mexico “chocolate” over the 97% cocoa offering, hand crafted on the steps of the Temple of Kukulcan by Quetzalcoatl himself. You’ll just have to suck it up.

Figure 1 shows the contestants:

Criteria

As Lindt and Sprüngli (1997) recommend, we assess on three main criteria:

• Aroma: assess and savour the distinctive yet individual aroma of each chocolate
• Taste: taste in small repeated quantities, seeing if the flavour lingers or diminishes too quickly
• Texture/Quality: how the chocolate breaks, does it melt in the mouth, leaving no residue

As we are focusing upon Easter, the presentation, packaging, scientifically-verifiable “Easter goodness”, and any extras will also be looked at.

To cleanse the palate, we will be utilising the delicious Jacob’s plain crackers, along with some tap water. Sorbet was originally considered, until deciding we didn’t want mango tasting chocolate throughout the experiment.

The eggs will be presented, tasted, and discussed one at a time, with the tasters unaware of the brand. A table follows comprising of the most insightful comments (Not, Al, “mmm, smells chocolate-y”) and final marks, listed in descending order.

Results

Conclusions

Thankfully, we didn’t turn out with every egg getting a 7/10, which we had feared. Guylian was the most loved egg, with 2 of the 3 judges voting it their favourite, and gaining the highest average score. Second place went to, perhaps surprisingly, the Nestle Smarties egg - with 1 judge voting it their favourite (indeed, achieveing an unprecedented 10/10 - rigging accusations are being looked into. Perhaps next year some sort of weighted scoring system from a randomly selected two out of three judges will be introduced).

At the lower end of the spectrum we were surprised to find both Thornton’s and Green & Black’s. Their milk chocolate egg was, frankly, horrible. On the other hand, it is quite possibly the only organic egg available, as well as the purest chocolate one there. Still, we’d rather eat soil.

So there you have it. Whilst blindly paying over the odds could have left you with an egg-shaped mass of 100% organic dirt, our informative guide is sure to save your Easter from such an earthy disaster. At least it would have been, had we not have published it 6 days after Easter was over. Oh well - at least you’ll be able to make a more informed choice when rifling through the leftovers.

This article is pending acceptance to the British Food Journal. Possibly.

Paul: I felt an introductory post was necessary, until I actually sat down and started to write it. Check the About Site page for a little more background, and the About Authors page for inane profiles of the two authors.

Al: Rather than contribute to this, I’m going to learn from past mistakes and not bother. Every single blog I’ve ever tried to start has featured a hard-hitting introductory post, a thought-provoking follow-up, and then nothing. So rather than set up another colossal anticlimax, I’m going to step back in the hope that things can only get better.

Regular (in the loosest sense of the word) features will include:

• “Taste Tests”, conducted by our sister organisation the APA Journal Of Food Tasting, in the vein of popular British TV show Richard & Judy, presented by the endearing Richard Madeley and his incompetent sidekick (apparently his wife or something), Judy Finnegan.
• “Cheap Technology”, where we attempt to recreate some high-tech, prototype, or made-up piece of technology merely using household items.
• That’s essentially it for now. However, bearing in mind that the two existing features were conjured up within about a minute of the site’s conception, you can probably expect more exciting features to appear as we dream them up.

So stay tuned for all of this and more. The first major articles will include a rather topical Taste Test, as well as a rather “handy” (lol) piece of HCI genius, reconstructed from egg boxes and tin foil (well, almost). With such indispensible futuristic contraptions being realised so soon, often for less than a pound, how can you possibly resist?