Chocolate Easter Bunnies

[David Ross]

The aisles of our local stores are currently lined with row upon row of chocolate Easter bunnies. I bought two bunnies, "Honey" and "Sunny" made by the RM Palmer Company of Reading, PA. They're my favorite kind of Easter bunny-hollow milk chocolate. My Father prefers solid chocolate Easter bunnies, and I'm pretty sure he goes for the higher end Bunnies from the Godiva or Dove chocolate camps.

Do you have a favorite chocolate Easter bunny?

[Lisa Shock]

I make my own nowadays, but, I can always find room in my life for Thomas Haas' chocolates.

***

I grew up with Despina Leos herself handing me candies in the Candy Kitchen in Hagerstown MD, and my parents ship me her son's confections on occasion. (she passed away a few years ago) Those boxes are always the most highly coveted presents to arrive at my house!

Back in the 1960's and 70's I can remember both of Mrs. Leos' chocolate shops being magical places. The building was over 100 years old, and the shelves and cases were made of heavy, dark wood and thick greenish glass. At Easter, she'd have a meter-tall decorated chocolate egg on display, and bunnies made from molds dating to sometime in the 1800's. The bunnies were usually either very long, lean hares, or, very formal dressed gentlemen in top hats and tails. Some years, the Easter bunny would bring me a basket made of chocolate filled with bonbons, other years it would be a two-part egg as big as a football filled with goodies. She and her son made all the various traditional candies for Faster baskets, all from molds passed down from previous generations of confectioners in the family -or from hand pulled sugar. Every time you went in, you would have samples thrust into your hand and warm conversation. And the chocolates were always great! I remember trying Godiva for the first time and thinking that it wasn't as good as the Candy Kitchen's chocolates.

Mrs. Leos and her family were really a big inspiration for me in becoming a pastry chef. Seeing the shop ceiling lined with hand-pulled candy canes every December, heart boxes in February, and hundreds of bunnies & eggs in springtime was always a big part of going on a downtown shopping expedition for me. In college, when I studied Ancient Greek, Mrs. Leos helped me with my studies and told me stories of her childhood in Greece and the tough, often violent times in WW2. (IIRC, she married into an established family of confectioners) And, she'd always have me sample the new candies.

I'm glad to see that some of her descendants have decided to re-boot the business.

[natasha1270]

The first time I ever persuaded my dad to buy me a chocolate easter bunny I was so shocked when I bit into it and found out it was hollow!! Such disappointment! Right up there with that first youthful taste of bakers chocolate. These days I like to buy the Godiva or Lindt bunnies for the next generation. Hollow but they don't seem to mind.

[highchef]

elmers. Seriously. I mean I'm not going to bake with it, and the taste is pure yellow chiffon dresses, petticoats and flowered headbands.