Sure, you could just eat it, quietly, under the cover of night as your children sleep. But the remains of half eaten, oversized bunnies, tiny eggs of compound chocolate and forgotten, crushed and squished specimens can be better used, even elevated, in a few good chocolate recipes.

1. Hot Chocolate Recipe

   In a saucepan, measure mug-fuls of milk for however many people you are serving. When the milk is warm, add pieces of broken Easter eggs or mini eggs and allow to melt in the heating milk. You can still use filled eggs for this, though I’d probably stop at using a Turkish delight one. Just think of it as fancy flavoured hot chocolate. Add enough chocolate till it is strong enough to your taste.

2. Filled Egg Brownies or Blondies Recipe

   Press caramel or other fondant filled mini eggs into a pan of brownie or blondie batter and bake as usual. Cool before cutting for a decadent, super sweet afternoon tea or dessert treat.

3. No Bake Mars Bar Slice Recipe

   The brilliant no-bake mars bar slice can be adapted to use caramel or nougat filled eggs.

   Line a baking pan about 30 x 20cm with baking paper.
   Melt together 50g of butter, 1 tablespoon of golden syrup and about 150g of caramel or nougat filled eggs.
   Add 3 cups of rice bubble cereal or equivalent and an additional chopped 50g of Easter chocolate.
   Stir to combine and then press into the prepared pan.
   Melt 200g of leftover plain Easter chocolate or cooking chocolate and pour this over the top of the previous mixture. Spread with a palette knife and allow to cool for an hour before cutting and serving. Keeps for up to 2 weeks.

4. Hedge Hog Slice Recipe

   Add broken Easter sweets and whole mini eggs to a hedgehog slice mixture, amongst the Marie biscuits and coconut. Line a baking pan about 30 x 20cm in size with baking paper. Melt together one 395g can of sweetened condensed milk with 100g of butter and 150g of leftover Easter chocolate in a saucepan. Add to this mixture 250g of crushed plain sweet biscuits, 40g of desiccated coconut and 2 tablespoons of cocoa. Stir to combine and then press mixture into pan. Melt 200 g of plain leftover chocolate and pour over the top of slice. Spread with palette knife and allow to set in fridge for 1 hour before cutting and service. Keeps for up to 2 weeks.

5. Cupcakes or Muffins Recipe with filled or solid mini egg in the centre

   In a vanilla or chocolate muffin or cupcake batter, press a solid egg into the centre of each uncooked muffin before baking. Makes a pretty fun lunchbox surprise with an innocuous looking muffin. And can be a fun way of sneaking in a sweet treat

6. Easter Egg Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe

   If using filled eggs, try forming the cookie dough around a single filled mini egg, making sure to seal the dough around it. This way when the chocolate melts, the caramel or fondant stay inside and don’t leak out of the cookie, which quickly burns and sticks to the tray otherwise. Make sure you cool these cookies completely before consuming, heated fillings are lava like and dangerously hot.

7. Hot Fudge Sauce Recipe

   The funny thing about filled eggs is that the fillings generally contain enough sugar and glucose so that you only need to combine about 1.5 cups of filled Easter eggs (fondant, nougat or caramel filled) with ¾ cup of cream and 2 tablespoons of good quality cocoa powder to make a decent hot fudge sauce which you can keep in the fridge and warm when you want to use.

8. Post-Easter Ice Cream Recipe

   If you’re partial to making ice cream, why not make a chocolate or vanilla flavoured batch full of chopped up Easter chocolate leftovers? Or if your children love the fancy store bought ice cream full of interesting bits of pieces, chop up all the leftover Easter sweets and mix it into softened commercial vanilla ice cream before returning it to the tub and re-freezing.

9. Make a jar of crushed Easter chocolate

   This is a pretty obvious step and applies best for your plain specimens. Keep a big glass jar of crushed and broken pieces to be used like chocolate chips or cooking chocolate in your baking. No rush to use it up this way.

10. Easter Chocolate Bark Recipe

    This is particularly brilliant because it makes the chocolate more delicious, gives you an opportunity to inject it with something vaguely wholesome, and looks so pretty and delicious you can use it for your own gift giving. Melt about 400g of plain Easter chocolate and stir through about 2 cups of rice bubble cereal before pouring this mixture onto a baking paper lined sheet pan of baking tray. Allow to cool. Melt an additional 300g of chocolate and pour over the top of this. While this chocolate is still wet, top with toasted nuts, coconut and bits of chopped leftover Easter chocolates – this can include speckled eggs with candy shells, filled eggs, anything really. Allow to cool before breaking into pieces. This is such a good revamp of leftover chocolate that you can even use it for gifts and no one would mind!