Coconut Cream or Peanut Butter Eggs

This is one of those simple recipes that impresses EVERYONE. The usual response is "You made these yourself?" They're really not difficult to make, they just take a little time and patience, that's all. It just wouldn't be Easter without them! Cathy is the one who's famous for making them in my family. She makes them every year and this is possibly the most Martha-esque thing I've ever seen her do. Not only does she make PERFECTLY shaped eggs that are PERFECTLY coated, but she also gives them as gifts. She places several eggs neatly in small gift boxes with a sheet of waxed paper in between the layers and then ties it up with a ribbon. You'd swear it came from a high-end candy shoppe! How PERFECT is that?
Thanx Sis!


1/4 pound (1 stick) butter
1 8 oz. package cream cheese
2 boxes confectioners sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/4 tsp. vanilla
1 large bag flaked coconut (I think it's a 12 oz. bag)

Dipping chocolate - You want dark chocolate, not milk chocolate. Depending on the brand, it's sold in different sized bags. Probably about 2 lbs. will be enough for one recipe of coconut cream eggs.

Instructions:
Cream together butter and cream cheese. Add confectioners sugar. Blend well. Add salt, vanilla and coconut and mix well.

Refrigerate filling about 1/2 hour to 1 hour or more. You can do this in steps. I usually make the filling one night (which takes no time at all), roll the eggs the next night (which takes a while), and dip all the eggs the 3rd night (which takes the most time). But that's just me.

Scoop about 1 heaping tsp filling per egg. If you have one of those cookie dough scoopers, that works well. Roll each ball of filling into an egg shape and place onto cookie sheet. Refrigerate until firm.

Melt dipping chocolate in double boiler or in a glass or metal bowl over a pot with about an inch of water in it. Microwaving doesn't work as well b/c the temperature of the chocolate doesn't stay at dipping consistency.

Drop the "eggs" one at a time into dipping chocolate. Use a fork to lift the egg out of the chocolate and tap against the side of the double-boiler to let some of the excess chocolate drip off. Place egg back onto cookie sheet. (It's a good idea to line the cookie sheets w/ parchment or waxed paper.) Once all the eggs are dipped, place the cookie sheet back into fridge until chocolate hardens. Then you can move the eggs into an airtight container with waxed paper in between layers of eggs.

For Peanut Butter Cream Eggs:
Substitute 1 1/2 cups peanut butter instead of the coconut. Everything else remains the same.

For Butter Cream Eggs:
Simply omit the peanut butter or coconut.


Cathy's Tips:
Dipping chocolate is different because it dries quickly into a hard coating. (It doesn't actually say "dipping chocolate" on the bag, but it is used specifically for candy-making. You can get candy-making chocolate in places like A.C. Moore too, but the brand I use is called Mercken's, and it's delicious.) You can use Hershey's but it doesn't harden well enough and gets messy when you're eating the finished product. Back in the day, we used to melt chocolate chips and add paraffin wax, but we haven't done that in a long time, and I must admit I didn't like melting wax into chocolate - just didn't seem right. One box of confectioner's sugar would be the 1 lb. box, so of course you can use one 32 oz. bag instead or 2 boxes.

Note from Joey - Yes, the dark chocolate is definitely the way to go with the coconut eggs, but I used milk chocolate with the peanut butter eggs and they were INCREDIBLE!. Just ask CJ! And I quote "Cadbury WHO????"