If your idea of an Easter gift is a Cadbury Creme Egg, you might want to up your game.
UK-based chocolaterie Choccywoccydoodah is known for its outlandish, extravagant creations, and their Easter collection this year is no exception.
The window of their store in Brighton, Sussex, in southern England is currently decked out with chocolate Easter eggs that tower over customers, and attract Instagrammers in their droves.
And they all come with a price tag as impressive as their stature – these giant eggs cost upwards of $31,128 (£25,000).
The Brighton collection is comprised of four giant, intricately designed eggs, made from a total of 573 pounds of handcrafted Belgian chocolate. The largest, “King Duck,” sits in an egg weighing 220 pounds, framed by handmade chocolate flowers with a pond background painted on the inside of the shell.
“Birth of Duck” sees a duck hatch from its shell, and is made of 132 pounds of chocolate, while “Duck Laying Egg” weighs in at 88 pounds. “Soft-Boiled Egg,” complete with a “baguette” for dunking, finishes the collection at a weight of 132 pounds.
Eat the parents
The London branch of the store, in Soho, has a similar collection on display, featuring a family of hares. The largest, again at 220 pounds, features “Mr & Mrs Hare” inside a chocolate burrow, surrounded by carrots and cabbages made, of course, entirely of chocolate. The interior of the egg is decorated with a rug and pictures on the wall.
The concept for the collection is envisaged months before, in a “daydreaming” session between Christine Taylor, Creative Director of Choccywoccydoodah, and Dave Ratcliffe, also known as Captain Creative.
“We chat about what we would like to achieve, then plan how it would be possible. Dave creates some drawings to formulize a plan for himself, before construction starts,” says Taylor.
The construction process takes around two months to complete, with a total of seven eggs created, displayed between the Brighton and London stores.
Private commissions
How are creations such as these transported?
“Obviously, with great care!” says Taylor. “Sometimes it’s just easiest to supply the eggs in a wheelbarrow.”
Eggs are also made for private commission, with high-profile clients ordering from all over the world.
“We have an overseas royal family who send their private jet into London to collect their favorite cakes and chocolate,” says Taylor.
They’re also popular with corporate clients, who want an impressive centerpiece for an event.
If these creations are a little out of your reach, there are plenty of more budget-friendly items in store. There are Belgian chocolate mini eggs,coated in a crispy sugar shell and filled with praline truffle, which retail for $6.26 (£4.99), or a box of six eggs, five of which are filled with praline and caramel, for $37.57 (£29.99).
Items like these are popular with visitors, but a visit to the stores is as much of a gallery experience as it is a shopping expedition. The Brighton store, hidden down the crooked, narrow alleys of The Lanes, is a tourist destination in itself.
The pieces on display veer towards the realm of Willy Wonka, with elaborate and intricate elements that are all 100% edible (incidentally, pieces made by Choccywoccydoodah were featured in Tim Burton’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”).
Think gothic wedding cakes, festooned with blood-red roses and a giant skull, above a banner reading “Til Death Do Us Part.” Or a psychedelic unicorn, leaping through the air on a flower-strewn flag that says “I Am What I Am.”
Choccywoccydoodah has been in operation for almost 23 years, after Taylor hatched the idea with a friend, Christine Garratt, and started the business in Brighton.
“It was never a plan, not then and not now. The name was found at the bottom of a bottle of gin, when we discovered ourselves to be the owners of a shop that we did not want.
“Drunk and hungry, we decided that if we had a shop, it must sell chocolate so that we had access to chocolate 24 hours a day. Stone-cold sober, we still liked the idea. And we still liked the name,” says Taylor.
Choccy’s Easter by the numbers
– The full collection of seven eggs took two months to make.
– The total weight of all the eggs in the collection is 1,102 pounds.
– The largest are over 3 feet tall, weighing in at 220 pounds.
– The smallest are around one foot eight inches, and weigh 88 pounds.
– The eggs start at a price of $31,128 (£25,000).
Brighton store: Choccywoccydoodah, 3 Meeting House Ln, Brighton BN1 1HB; 01273 329462
London store: Choccywoccydoodah, 30-32 Fouberts Place, Carnaby, London W1F 7PS; 0207 734 9713
Nicola Brady is a travel writer based in the west of Ireland. She has written for the Irish Independent, the Guardian, Condé Nast Traveler, Tatler and more.