Bettys: Yorkshire tearooms unveil their £395 Easter Egg with 5kg of chocolate

That’s because even those with a will of iron will be tempted by the Easter offerings from Yorkshire’s most famous tearooms, Bettys.

The team at its craft bakery in Harrogate have spent months brainstorming and creating delectables ready for the festival.

No plain milk chocolate here: instead, temptations include a tempered Grand Cru Swiss chocolate egg with hand piped pansies and tulips in Royal Icing.

For those with an extra sweet tooth, the Jenny the Sheep White Chocolate egg has swirls designed to remind the eater of a sheep’s woolly fleece.

And grown-ups will relish the dark chocolate speckled egg with subtle hints of coffee, plums, cinnamon and raisins.

Easter is one of our favourite times of year at Bettys as it is the perfect opportunity to showcase the incredible talents of our bakers, chocolatiers and confectioners,” explained Julie Ward, Product & Innovation Patissier. “This year is no exception and we’ve got some real works of arts to share with customers.

“We have taken inspiration this year from the beauty of a Yorkshire springtime. It is a time of reawakening – especially in the natural world – and we like to celebrate that in the designs we create including the delicate spring flowers included on some of our Easter Eggs. We definitely see lots of tulips when walking around Harrogate and Yorkshire in the spring – this was the inspiration to use tulips in our designs.”

For those whom a normal sized egg just won’t do, the team have also created the Bettys Grande Easter Egg.

Using some 5kg of Grand Cru Swiss Chocolate, the egg is only made to order with a two week lead time, owing to the intricacies of its hand piped narcissi, pansies and primroses.

Standing at 55cm tall, it will set chocolate lovers back some £395.

“When we design our eggs we always take into consideration flavour, colour, unique design, staying on brand but also adding a contemporary twist where we can,” said Ms Ward. “For the Grande Egg we always start our design drawing by hand, making sure we get the correct colour palette, then transferring this onto the egg with our intricate hand piped flowers and hand piped icing design.

“The design of our skilled chocolatiers and the handcrafted beautiful sugar flowers crafted by our cake decorating team - make this a beautiful, colourful egg. It’s recognisably Bettys but it is also a more contemporary look.

The Easter collection is part of a tradition stretching back over 100 years from when Bettys first opened in Harrogate.

Ms Ward said: “Frederick Belmont who opened the first Bettys in 1919 was a Swiss chocolatier. Creating beautiful chocolate designs has been at the heart of Bettys since those early days.

"Frederick was particular about using the very best ingredients and we still use only the world’s finest chocolate at Bettys, which is what makes our products so exceptional.”