Vegan Chocolate Easter Bunnies

If you are vegan and you buy into the commercial Easter hoopla like we do, chances are you have scoured the Easter Candy aisles in search of that elusive, perhaps mythical vegan chocolate Easter bunny to be the centerpiece of your little one's basket this year.

I have heard tell of a Lindt Gold Bunny in Dark Chocolate that is accidentally vegan but after scouring every Target, Walmart, Walgreens, Rite-Aid, and grocery store around here I have never come across one.  Of course they can be ordered online but I never think far enough ahead for that kind of brilliance.  There are some online retailers that offer specific vegan chocolate bunnies but they are usually of limited quantity (meaning order EARLY) and at $22 and $27 quite expensive in my honest opinion.  For me to buy bunnies for each of my three kids we are talking $70-$80 plush shipping for chocolate Easter bunnies?  No thanks. 

My answer with everything I just can't find to suit my needs is to make it myself.

All you need are vegan chocolate chips (or your own homemade vegan chocolate, which I will share in the future), molds and if you want to fill them with say peanut butter or caramel sauce that too.

So first for vegan chocolate chips:  They can usually be found in the bulk section at your local health food store or even at Winco if you have one near you.  Look for semi-sweet and check the ingredients to make sure there is no milkfat, whey, casien or other dairy ingredients.  Ghiradelli semi-sweet choclate chips are accidentally vegan and if you stock up when they are on sale pretty decently priced.  The bulk section at Winco is the cheapest option I have found for chips.

Molds:  I found this super cute bunny mold at Target the other day and a simple deviled egg display tray at the Dollar store.  You can use cupcake pans, mini cake pans sometimes called cakelets, cookie cutters, candy molds just all kinds of things for your molds.

Fillings:  If you so desire you can fill the chocolates with caramel, or peanut butter or even MARSHMALLOW!  There are a bunch of recipes out there for vegan caramel, peanut butter cups and even marshmallow. Here are my favorites:

Caramel:  http://www.sheletthemeatcake.com/2010/01/gluten-free-and-vegan-caramel/comment-page-1/#comment-6593

Peanut butter:  http://www.thekindlife.com/post/chocolate-peanut-butter-cups  (just do the peanut butter filling part)

Marshmallow:  http://veganmarshmallows.blogspot.com/2009/04/vegan-marshmallow-recipe.html **These do require some rather obscure ingredients and the author does not recommend making them unless you have a stand mixer or are secretly Superman.

Once you have all your stuff together (fillings premade) you need to melt your chocolate.  The easiest, cleanest way I have found to melt chocolate chips for doing things like this is to heat a pot of water to not quite boiling and then take it off the heat.  Put your chips in a ziplock bag (I use the freezer ones because they are the thickest), make sure it is closed and then dip it into the water.  Hold it there for a minute or so and then pull it out and knead the chocolate with your hands, do this 3 or 4 times until the chips are all melted and you have a bag full of melted chocolate sauce.  Now take a towel and dry off every drop of water from the outside of the bag, chocolate and water don't mix!  Once you have it dry snip off a tiny corner of the bag and use it to pipe the chocolate into your molds.

If you are going to be filling the molds only lay down a thick bottom layer, then use a basting brush to cover the sides of the molds.  Spoon in your filling, and then cover with more chocolate.  If you are not filling them with anything just fill your molds with chocolate all the way.  Gently tap your molds on the counter to settle the chocolate into all the little crevices.  Place molds into the freezer for about an hour.  Then turn them upside down on a piece of parchment paper, gently tap them on the counter to release the chocolate from the molds.  Silicone molds require a little more hands on actually popping the molds inside out to get them out.  You can wrap them individually in foil, we did some like that to put in the Easter Eggs we mailed away to our family members.  You can put several in a cellophane bag and tie it up with a ribbon.  However you present them you can be assured that the wrapping will be destroyed and the chocolates will disappear so fast you will wonder if making them was all just a dream :)

Sorry I did not take more photos of the process, I was covered in kids and chocolate and having a grand old time.  I am going to make some larger ones tonight for their baskets, I will try to snap a few more photos while I'm being the sneaky bunny!