Bursting with colour, the idea for the front cover for this issue has been 12 months in the making. The inspiration came about last year.

We were doing a small feature on Irish Easter eggs and as much as they tasted delicious, I couldn’t get over how beautiful they were, both individually and together.

The image of the sea that adorned the Hazel Mountain Chocolates Easter egg was like a painting while the inside of Gráinne Mullins’s Grá eggs with its squishy marshmallows and knobbly nuts was just crying out to be captured. At that point, our front cover for the 2021 Easter issue had been designed but “Next year,” I thought, “next year, our focus is going to be on eggs.”

Spring arrived and I described my vision to our picture editor Philip Doyle. He was sceptical, but never a man afraid of a challenge, he said “Let’s give it a go.”

Philip’s eyes lit up, I could see the creativity flowing

And so one morning, with the sun shining into a Tipperary farmhouse, I started to remove the foil. Vibrant greens, soft pinks, shiny speckles of blue and splashes of yellow all popped against the background of that delicious chocolate brown.

Philip’s eyes lit up, I could see the creativity flowing, he was on board with my vision and that’s when the real fun began. Bean & Goose had supplied me with a little wooden hammer for breaking up their chocolate blocks and we got to work.

We smashed and shattered, broke up our favourite bits and of course, tasted a few samples on the way

It’s a pity it was only adults in attendance because really, it was a child’s dream. We smashed and shattered, broke up our favourite bits and of course, tasted a few samples on the way. And so we created a cover that shows the colours of Easter and the creativity of Irish chocolatiers.

However, although we came up with the idea to put these eggs together, the real hard work behind this cover comes from the likes of Gráinne Mullins in Grá Chocolates, Anna Coffey from Braw, Georgia Quealy and Daniel Linehan from Praline Chocolates and Kasha Kennedy in Hazel Mountain Chocolate. These innovators have brought Irish chocolate to another level which we detail here.

Candied hazelnuts, coffee biscuits, freeze-dried raspberries, salted toasted almonds, heather honeycomb and mint ganache are just some of the ingredients that Irish chocolatiers are using to elevate their eggs.

So as you peruse the shelves in the coming days for your annual Easter investment, think Irish because the creativity, appearance and most importantly the taste will honestly blow you away.