Italian chocolate Easter eggs are the perfect treat for your Easter table this year. With a surprise inside and the high quality of their chocolate, both children and adults will absolutely love them.
The tradition of exchanging chocolate eggs, which hide a small gift inside, is a custom that has replaced the old-fashioned way of offering chicken eggs and represents an ideal occasion to taste the recipes of Italian chocolate shops.
What Do We Celebrate At Easter?
Easter is a religious celebration, supposedly the most important in Christianity (even more than Christmas, initially!). In fact, it celebrates the resurrection of Christ, his return from the world of the dead.
But by the way, why do we celebrate this holiday by exchanging chocolate eggs?
Since ancient times, the egg has been a symbol of life and rebirth. The Romans, Persians, and Egyptians decorated eggs and offered them to each other to celebrate the return of spring.
In the 9th century, the Catholic Church forbade the consumption of eggs during Lent, the period of deprivation just before Easter. However, as the hens continued to lay, people ended up with extra eggs. Thus, they got into the habit of decorating eggs that were no longer edible to offer to each other.
During the 19th century, when cocoa had become more accessible, chocolatiers started to make chocolate eggs. A tradition which has not been lost since, to the delight of our taste buds!
Note: Lavolio is where to buy the best Italian chocolate Easter eggs - Easter is fast approaching, don’t miss it!
What Do Chocolate Eggs And Bunnies symbolise?
The egg is a symbol of fertility and life. For the ancient Greeks, giving a hare as a gift was a way of declaring one's feelings to someone (like bouquets of roses today, which are definitely more popular than bunnies, though not as cute).
Subsequently, they became a symbol of love, fertility and new life. Especially thanks to the large number of babies a mother-rabbit can give birth to.
Christians have thus associated them with the celebration of Easter. To the point that we have come to imagine that it was a bunny who distributed the eggs!
So that's the reason we have these symbols. Either the rabbit, which is a sign of fertility, or the egg, which is a symbol of new life, for Easter is the feast for Christians, of Jesus, still alive after death.
How to Know the Best Italian Chocolate Easter Eggs
The best Italian chocolate Easter eggs are produced respecting the traditional recipe and easily recognisable by reading the ingredients list on the labels. The first characteristic of excellence is cocoa butter's exclusive use. In that case, the chocolate eggs do not contain traces of low-cost tropical fats, such as palm or coconut oil, which are normally tolerated up to 5% in the final product.
In addition to the "smooth shells," Easter egg alternatives could be with nuts, such as "alle nocciole gianduia." In this case, hazelnuts make the difference. This precious ingredient can vary between a minimum of 20% (15% in milk chocolate) and up to 40%. But all Italian chocolate Easter eggs are delicious, whether giant or mini. Which ones will you buy this year?
