This week we’re highlighting our favorite Easter-themed blog posts featuring a treasure trove of ideas to help make this your best Easter season yet! Discover a simple solution for executing custom Easter baskets, inspiration for over-the-top Easter egg offerings, tips on hosting a hands-on Easter-themed event that will have everyone hopping with joy and more!

 

 

 

A Simple Solution for Offering Custom Easter Baskets

Shoppers love to create their own custom Easter baskets, but for the retailer it can be time-consuming and involve complex pricing strategies. Read here for a more simplified approach that makes it more efficient for your retail shop and your shoppers.

 

 

 

Creative Easter-Themed Product Names Generate Interest

Want to refresh your line of confections for Easter with little to no effort? You don't have to create entirely new recipes or invest in costly advertising campaigns to get customers excited about your products; all you really need is a bit of imagination. Renaming existing treats with Easter themes can boost interest and sales without altering the product itself. Read more to discover clever tips.

 

 

EGGS-tra Easter Egg Inspiration

No matter if you like your chocolate Easter eggs more traditional or if you prefer a more unconventional approach, here’s creative ideas to take your chocolate Easter eggs to the next level. Read more.

 

 

 

How to Create a Faux Chocolate Bunny for your Easter Display

Create impressive, moulded chocolate bunny displays, but without the chocolate! Check out this member tip for step-by-step directions to a chocolate look-alike Easter bunny (or turkey, life-size football, snowman, Santa, etc.) that can be reused year after year! Read more to learn how.

 

 

Increase Easter Sales: Host a Peeps Pop Event

Hosting an “Easter Bunny Peeps® Pop Event” is a great way to create buzz about your store while increasing sales and foot traffic leading up to Easter. Read more to learn how.

Add an extra sprinkle of excitement to this year’s Easter celebration with inspiration from our collection of blog posts, whether that’s in the form of a more efficient process, an unexpected twist on your classic offerings or a chocolate-covered Easter event. Tell us more about how you plan to boost sales and attract more customers during Easter on RCI’s Facebook page at Facebook.com/RetailConfectioners.

Crave more?Click here to subscribe and start receiving weekly tips, like this, delivered straight to your email inbox. RCI's blog is just one of the many resources we offer to help candy makers refine their craft and build upon their business and marketing practices. Follow us on Facebook for even more sweet inspiration.

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Easter is one of the biggest holidays for many candy shops. Hosting an “Easter Bunny Peeps^® Pop Event” is a great way to create buzz about your store while increasing sales and foot traffic leading up to Easter. In this week’s post, we’re sharing the idea from RCI member, Dolle’s Candyland in Ocean City, Maryland, which includes valuable tips on how to make your event successful.

Making “Easter Bunny Peeps Pops” are very easy, which makes this a great hands-on activity for kids that requires minimal work for candy makers. Here’s what each participant will need:

Ingredients (per child)

 

• 1 Peeps Marshmallow Bunny
• 1 Sucker stick
• 1 Mini marshmallow (for the bunny tail)
• Melted tempered chocolate (for dipping)
• 1 Paper plate
• Markers (for writing kid’s name on their plate)
• Sanitizing hand wipes

 

 

 

5-Step Peeps Pop Procedure

Dolle's shared their "recipe" for creating a successful Easter Peeps Pop event with these five easy-to-follow steps:

#1: Distribute hand wipes and have children roll up their sleeves.

Dolle's team was prepared with a large container of hand wipes, purchased from Amazon, to make hand-washing a breeze while kiddos waited in line.

#2: Write child’s name on the bottom of a paper plate.

This step allows for you to hold the peep “hostage” while it cools (you’ll learn why on step #4).

#3: Let each child dip Peeps Pop in chocolate, place it on a plate and add a mini marshmallow “tail.”

This is where it’s important to keep steps to a minimum—little to no decorations are necessary. Having hosted similar events, Dolle's has learned the value of keeping it simple. “If you leave sprinkles out, the kids will want to use all the sprinkles,” noted Anna Dolle Bushnell. In other words, you don’t need sprinkles at all. Kids will be more than satisfied with simply dipping their marshmallow in chocolate and adding the tail. Another important tip to note, have a step-stool handy for the smaller children.

#4: Hold the Peeps Hostage

This step was emphasized by Anna for good reason, “Instead of walking around the store with a wet, chocolate Peeps Pop, we put it through the cooling tunnel of our enrober until the chocolate set.” Adding that placing the pops in front of a fan or in the refrigerator would be suitable alternatives if you don’t have a cooling tunnel.

The key to this step, and the overall success of this event, is while the chocolate cooled, participating families had about ten minutes to shop in their retail store.

#5: After Peeps Pop is set, announce child's name in shop.

When ready, a member of the Dolle's team read the name on the bottom of each plate before presenting the child with their finished Peeps Pop. “Most of the kids would gobble it right up, but some did take them home,” Anna noted. “Some of them were beautiful, while some of them ended up with a pool of chocolate.”

Leading up to the event, Dolle’s Candyland created a public event on Facebook to help spread the word. They were surprised to find people lined up out the door to make chocolate-covered Peeps. “I didn’t know I would need stanchions [to direct the crowd],” Anna explained, “I think we [as candy makers] take for granted what we do—people really love candy. It’s such a great thing to give them an experience like this, that really is very minimal.”

The Conclusion

Due to the buzz created by this free, one-day event, Dolle’s Candyland increased their sales by 150% more than the day before. “People were just so thankful that we did it and some adults did it too,” added Anna. If space limitations prevent your store from hosting an event, consider boxing up the ingredients and supplies for customers to make Peeps Pops at home. Wishing you a “hoppy” Easter!

Crave more?Click here to subscribe and start receiving weekly tips, like this, delivered straight to your email inbox. RCI's blog is just one of the many resources we offer to help candy makers refine their craft and build upon their business and marketing practices. Follow us on Facebook for even more sweet inspiration.

Not a member? Click here to learn how RCI can help you build your sweet business.

How do you like your eggs?

And by that, we mean Easter eggs? April 17 will be here before we know it, but there’s still time to introduce some fresh ideas when it comes to chocolate Easter eggs. This week, we’re featuring EGGS-tra Easter eggs to help spark your imagination.

 

 

Smash Eggs
Say “goodbye” to hot cocoa bombs and “hello” to smash eggs! Many chocolatiers already have a hollow Easter egg mould in their toolkit, but what do you fill it with? Depending on the size of your mould, you may want to fill your smash egg with jelly beans, miniature foiled chocolates, truffles, chocolate-covered mini pretzels, chocolate-covered nuts and/or berries, etc. 

 

 

Some other unique ideas we’ve seen are eggs filled with tiny white chocolate chicks (cue “aww!”) and the more unexpected mini chocolate dinosaurs (cue gasp!). For even more dramatic effect, don’t forget the sprinkles, which will undoubtedly go flying upon impact between the egg and the mallet!

 

 

We love how RCI members Anderson’s Candies and Sarris Candies displayed their colorful smash eggs on their Facebook pages!

 

 

Easter Egg Overflow
There’s no surprise what you’re getting with Aldi’s Curious Inventions Easter Eggs! These Easter eggs are so packed with flavor, the contents are bursting through the chocolate shell. Although this does create a nice visual effect, the flavor combinations are just as intriguing.

There are six different varieties, such as banoffee (banana, caramel and butterscotch flavors); salted pretzel and orange; cookies and cream; popping candy; strawberries and cream (with real freeze-dried strawberry pieces) and the Billionaire egg, featuring chocolate and caramel fudge, white chocolate covered cookies and honeycomb candy.

 

Easter Egg Bark
Who says Easter eggs have to be three-dimensional? Here’s two examples of eggs that, despite their shape, don’t fall flat on the delivery!

It’s eggs-on-eggs-on-eggs with this chocolate bark by the LittleSugar Snaps blog that features loads of popular egg-themed candies. We love the swirls of color on the eggs by the Chocolate Pizza Company, plus the addition of a beautifully scribed name is an extra special touch.

 

 

Fruity Follies

 

 

These fruity lookalikes will have you doing a double-take! With a little imagination, Melt London transforms a standard three-dimensional egg into a strawberry filled with a chocolate strawberry cake.

Fruit lovers will undoubtedly fall for these lifelike pomegranate and lemon-shaped moulded chocolates sold by British grocery retailer, Waitrose. The pomegranate is made with caramelized white chocolate and real pomegranate, while the lemon version features white chocolate infused with zesty lemon flavors.

 

 

Animal-Themed Eggs
Take a walk on the wild side when pulling your inspiration from this barnyard bunch by Australian chocolatier,  Cacao or try a more abstract approach with the animal prints created for fashion designer Roberto Cavalli’s Italian coffee shop.

No matter if you like your chocolate Easter eggs more traditional or if you prefer a more unconventional approach, we hope this week’s post offers plenty of sweet inspiration this season!

Crave more?C lick here to subscribe and start receiving weekly tips, like this, delivered straight to your email inbox. RCI's blog is just one of the many resources we offer to help candy makers refine their craft and build upon their business and marketing practices.  Follow us on Facebook for even more sweet inspiration.

Not a member? Click here to learn how RCI can help you build your sweet business .

 

If you’re looking to create an impressive holiday display in your candy shop, many would agree large moulded chocolates make great showpieces. However, working with chocolate as your medium certainly presents enough challenges to cause you to look for another subject to be the center of attention. Whether for fear of the potential effects of exposure to sunlight, humidity, curious customers, or ____________ (you fill in the blank), you may have decided long ago that even a sprightly, three-foot-tall chocolate bunny in all its glory is not worth the investment of time and resources every year, especially leading up to a busy holiday.

This week’s tip will allow you to deliver the same impact only a large chocolate Easter bunny could, but with eventually the same effort as takes to do some light dusting. Simply follow the steps below to create a chocolate look-alike Easter bunny (or turkey, life-size football, snowman, Santa, etc.) out of Plaster of Paris.

Step-By-Step Instructions for Chocolate Bunny Look-Alike
By RCI member, Marie’s Candies of West Liberty, Ohio

 

 

Materials needed:

 

• Plaster of Paris
• Mixing bowl
• Popsicle stick (or other mixing utensil)
• Access to water
• Brown acrylic paint or spray paint
• Paint brush
• Glue gun (optional)
• Icing eyes (optional)

 

Instructions:

 

1. Make sure your favorite chocolate bunny mould is clean. The great thing about using moulds you already have is the Easter bunny in your display will look just like the real chocolate bunnies you want to sell.
2. Follow the mixing instructions on a package of Plaster of Paris.
3. Wet the inside of the mould, so the Easter bunny can be removed easily. Fill the mould a quarter at a time, tapping it to remove air.
4. Remove the bunny from the mould after one hour and let it dry for 24 hours.
5. Wash the mould and any other tools immediately after use.
6. Once the bunny is dry, use spray paint or a brush to paint it chocolate brown.
7. Use a glue gun to add icing eyes (optional).

 

After following these simple steps, you will have an impressive moulded chocolate so realistic, you’ll want to display it year after year! As far as we can tell, the only downside here is that you might have to perform a lick test if you get your look-alikes mixed up with actual chocolate. Have your real moulded chocolate displays ever met their untimely demise due to curious customers or exposure to the elements? Share your story in the comments below.

Crave more? If you like what you read here, look for the "Subscribe now" box on the right to enter your email address and start receiving weekly tips, like this, delivered straight to your email inbox. RCI's blog is just one of the many resources we offer to help candy makers refine their craft and build upon their business and marketing practices. Follow us on Facebook for even more sweet inspiration.