Easter eggs and Chocolate - history 

MENU

Easter Egg hunt.
Our 2008 clues used

Easter 2007 history
Chocolate eggs history
Dresses / dressing up
Baskets
Mini holiday breaks

How Easter eggs - became chocolate

The probable history of Easter Eggs is on our page about that, but why do we have chocolate Easter eggs? (Apart from the fact that chocolate is delicious.)

The first Easter eggs, dating back thousands of years were painted red and the tradition of painting eggs (goose, duck or hen) continued and became more elaborate through the centuries. By the end of the 17th century the process had become commercialised and it was possible to buy pre-painted eggs.

During the next two centuries hollow cardboard eggs became popular and would be filled with presents. Expensive jewelled eggs came into existence and this tradition culminated in the incredible Easter eggs created by the French jeweller Fabergé.

The famous Fabergé Eggs were created for the Russian royal family, and their value today is in the millions.

The jewellery egg is something of a sideline in the development of the chocolate egg that we have today, which evolved from the cardboard egg.

The first chocolate eggs appeared in the early 1800s, although the nature of chocolate (at that time) made creating a hollow egg something of an achievement. A hundred years later the improved chocolate making process plus mass production created the commercially available, relatively low cost, chocolate Easter Egg and within the following hundred years it became the dominant gift for Easter.