A cocktail Easter Egg like no other
Inspired by the Chocolate Butterscotch Espresso Martini we made last year for Easter, this year we’ve gone one better and turned that into an actual cocktail Easter Egg in collaboration with Sydney based artisan chocolatier Bakedown Cakery.
Jen of Bakedown is known for her exquisite creations, often using unusual flavours that reflect her heritage and background. She introduced the Eggspresso Martini chocolate Easter Egg last year, and when she mentioned making it again this year for Easter, it looked like our worlds of chocolate and cocktails would finally meet!
The egg itself comprises an outer shell made of single origin Peru chocolate which encases an alcoholic ganache to evoke the flavours of the cocktail. The original Chocolate Butterscotch Espresso Martini we made utilised locally made Ord River Overproof Rum, Mr Black Coffee Amarao, Distillery Botanica Koko Noir creme de cacao, Baker Williams butterscotch schnapps and espresso coffee. We’ve mostly stayed true to this recipe, but have tweaked it to incorporate it into the alcoholic ganache that fills the Easter egg. Following some trials, we swapped out the Ord River Overproof Rum for the Jamaican made Hampden Estates Overproof Rum. That rum wasn’t yet available at the time we made the original cocktail; it was only released in late 2018 and is in fact, the first aged rum to be released under the distillery''s own name since its founding over 200 years ago. With a reputation for producing some of the funkiest rums on the market, the use of the Hampden actually fared better than the Ord River during the development stage. - and when you taste the egg, hopefully you’ll agree. Its full bodied fruitiness means some of that flavour is retained even when mixed with chocolate for the ganache, whereas a lighter bodied rum would have gotten lost.
Instead of “normal” espresso, the ganache incorporates the same cold drip coffee that goes into the Mr Black liqueurs, which was brewed for us by the distillery. Given the ganache is made using chocolate, we’ve left out the chocolate liqueur (obviously) but the single origin Peru chocolate used in the outer shell evokes the same cherry notes of the chocolate liqueur, so as a whole, we think this stays true to the flavours we aimed to achieve with the original cocktail!
The eggs are available in three different sizes - mini, medium and a limited edition overproof version. The Overproof combines well over a whopping 500g of solid quality chocolate as well as more booze in the ganache - call this the Cask Strength/Navy Strength/Overproof version! There’s only a small quantity of the Overproof version though, so hop to it so you have something to enjoy to yourself that the kiddies can’t share.
Order your eggs HERE via Bakedown Cakery for delivery from 8 April!