The best Easter eggs for 2017

Roughly half the eggs we called in this year were sprayed gold – an obvious trend for 2017 – and ASDA’s was no different. But while many of the others talked the talk, this one actually tasted as premium as it looked. It had that classic Easter egg chocolate taste without the sickly sweet finish, and there were a few little truffles thrown in for good measure.

Another egg that lives up to its appearance, Tesco’s offering had a nice thick milk chocolate shell with an even thicker layer of truffle praline inside, turning it from humdrum to decadent. It might prove a bit sickly for some, but in small doses it’s rich, indulgent and seriously luxurious.

Divine takes a more traditional approach to their egg’s packaging, ditching the glimmering gold spray for some foil and a bright cardboard box. This year, they’ve teamed up with popcorn pioneers Joe & Seph’s to create something a bit different. As well as the two small bags of salted caramel flavoured popcorn, they’ve thrown a load inside the egg itself, coating them with chocolate and sticking them to the shell. This creates a surprisingly nice texture, and minimises the sometimes sickly aspect of milk chocolate.

Hotel Chocolat prides itself on quality above everything else, so while their egg might look a bit standard, you’d expect it to taste out of this world. Thankfully it does, with a long, lingering, developing flavour that’s not often found in milk chocolate. The six little brownie-flavoured truffles in the bottom of the box are a real treat, too.

Every year Heston manages to create (or possibly gets a chocolate chicken to lay, knowing him) an egg for Waitrose that’s bigger and better than the previous year. This time around, his giant dark egg is made to look like a real one, and inside there are little speckled blue ones filled with caramel that can be dipped in the chocolate and passion fruit soil. Yes, it’s quite expensive, but you actually get a lot of very tasty chocolate for your money. Plus, it’s great fun and can be shared easily.

What a beaut! By far the most impressive looking egg on the table. Once you’ve admired the pattern on the outside and smashed Rococo’s hard work to bits, you’ll find a little clutch of very realistic looking gull’s eggs inside. But instead of baby birds, they each contain some of the nicest salted caramel we’ve ever tasted. One for the aesthetically minded.

Made using the finest Amedei chocolate (which William uses exclusively – we tested one made by the company themselves but it seems William has a magic touch that just edged them out), this egg is refined, elegant and very demure. The supermarkets slap on the gold spray far too thick; here, it’s applied with a deft touch, so it just catches the light. Needless to say the chocolate tasted absolutely incredible, but the real treat were the sticks of chocolate-covered orange jelly inside (William calls them ‘orangettes’). Fantastic value for money, considering the quality of the ingredients.

He might be famous for chucking things like Stilton and Marmite into his chocolate, but when Paul A Young sticks to tradition and works with milk chocolate it’s clear why he’s such a successful chocolatier. With an incredible, developing sweet flavour with an amazing texture that just melts away in your mouth, the egg also comes with a chocolate stand, keeping it standing tall while you break bits off. Bonus points for some very pretty little painted chocolate eggs inside, too.