Easter chocolate: which brands should you choose?

Easter is chocolate's second season, just behind Christmas — and the only one where we buy chocolate to throw it into the grass. Which is exactly why the budget deserves a smart split: some volume for the hunt, one genuinely good chocolate for the table. Here is how, without overspending or eating rubbish.

Which Easter chocolate brands should you choose?

It all depends on the moment of the day, and that is where most people get it wrong.

For the egg hunt, take small filled eggs in a big bag — Côte d'Or or an own brand. Those eggs will roll through the grass, land in the mud and be devoured in three minutes: that is not where the money should go.

For the table, however, step up: a ballotin of friture bought by weight at Leonidas or Neuhaus. And to give, Pierre Marcolini's Easter creations remain the Belgian high-end reference — the bean-to-bar work shows in the moulding and tastes from the first bite.

What is friture, the Belgian Easter speciality?

It is our best Easter idea, and foreign visitors fall for it every year. Friture — those little chocolates moulded as fish, shells and shellfish, filled with praliné or ganache — is sold by weight, like pralines, at every Belgian chocolatier in spring.

Why is it better than an industrial egg? Because it is fresh, the shell is fine, and you choose the composition of the ballotin yourself. We filled one at Leonidas and compared it with a supermarket assortment the same weekend: within a few euros of the same budget, and the ballotin was empty long before the bag.

Which Easter chocolate should you give as a gift?

A Pierre Marcolini creation, if the gift has to make a mark. At Easter as the rest of the year, the Sablon house remains the Belgian high-end reference: it works bean-to-bar, selects and roasts its own beans, and its seasonal pieces are moulded with a finesse the big brands do not reach.

Just behind, Neuhaus offers the safe classic gift, and Sablon houses such as Wittamer sign very photogenic festive pieces. Guylian, with its chocolate seashells, remains the most recognisable Belgian Easter gift abroad — but we would save it for a parcel rather than a table of connoisseurs.

Which Easter chocolates for children and adults?

The ballotin of friture, again — it is the only formula that reconciles both audiences.

Children go for the shapes: the fish, the starfish, the seahorse. Adults go for the fillings: hazelnut praliné, ganache, gianduja. The same ballotin feeds two different pleasures, which no giant hollow egg manages.

When should you buy Easter chocolate?

In the week before, never a month ahead. A chocolatier's friture keeps only a few weeks: that freshness is exactly what you pay for, and buying it too early means wasting it.

Industrial eggs, on the other hand, last months without flinching — which should tell us enough about what is in them. One last marker in store: a glossy, fine shell that snaps cleanly. A dull, thick, heavy egg is almost always a filler egg.

Need help with an off-season gift? Our guide to giving Belgian chocolate covers every other occasion, and our chocolate quiz pins down the recipient's profile in a few questions.