Did you know - Fabergé eggs were actually Easter egg gifts?
That's why they're eggs.

With a bit of product development, I'm pretty sure mass-produced ornate detailed fancy chocolate eggs with several delicate-seeming perforated layers of chocolate in multiple colours and flavours could be a thing.

If you wanted to call them Fabergé chocolate eggs, you'd probably have to licence the name. But other similar names exist (e.g.: "Fauxbergé") if that proved too expensive.
-- Loris, Nov 14 2022

3D Printed Chocolate https://www.google....AQE&sclient=gws-wiz
The tech is ready (more-or-less). Might need to increase the precision. [neutrinos_shadow, Nov 14 2022]

Cómo hacer un huevo de Pascua calado https://cocinacaser...vo-de-pascua-calado
[pocmloc, Nov 15 2022]

Seiji Tsukimoto https://www.google....=930&biw=1903&hl=en
Amazing cut-paper pop-ups; methods could be transferred to thin sheets of chocolate to facilitate mass-production. [neutrinos_shadow, Nov 15 2022]

another possible inspiration https://www.marcosk...com/Parchment-Roses
[pocmloc, Nov 15 2022]

If its visible online it is far too common and not exclusive enough.
-- pocmloc, Nov 15 2022


//Variations on this theme exist. How cheap and mass-produced do you want to get?//

Probably around the high-quality mass-produced level.
So 3D printing is probably out for at least the bulk of the components (it's very slow).

//None of these will do?//<google search link>
Not really. With the odd exception (which you've broken out in the 'hand crafted' link), these are ornate but not 'latticework' eggs. Being able to see into detailed inner layers of the egg is important.
The hand-crafted egg also isn't appropriate, since it appears to be far too delicate to transport - it was a dessert course at the Ritz.

I am imagining it to have several shells of chocolate with holes you can look through to see the inner layers. But it mustn't be so delicate that it's difficult to ship, so the outermost layers must have thick enough chocolate wires in cross-section.

The standard hollow chocolate easter-egg (and chocolate bunny, etc) is made by putting liquid chocolate into a thin plastic two-part mould, then tumbling the assembly while it cools. Sometimes these have multiple different colours of chocolate, piped in first by hand onto selected areas, so the process is fairly tractable.
Eggs with stuff like packets of sweeties inside can't be made with that process, and generally seem to have two half shells cast separately then glued together with more chocolate.

I think both these processes are largely performed by hand, since the production run for each product is limited.

In the latter process, one can imagine dividing the egg into more than two radial segments, then sticking them together efficiently by adding liquid chocolate at the poles. I believe the process for assembling Terry's Chocolate Orange currently does something similar, albeit with solid segments around a central core (and my guess is that this is fully automated).

So the first process can't easily yield holes, but could still be used for the innermost egg layer, and could probably carry a good amount of detail.
Similar to the second process, one could imagine casting multiple curved struts, each being one segment of the egg, and linking them together around an inner chocolate unit to make a cohesive assembly.
Obviously, one could repeat the process an arbitrary number of times, but maybe it would be wise to just have two in the initial product. The first is really just a simple existing method, and the second is maybe a bit more complicated, so after scale-up the assembly costs might be something like three times as much as a simple Easter egg is currently?
-- Loris, Nov 15 2022


pocmloc, that's a good link. ("Cómo hacer un huevo de Pascua calado")

Basically it seems to be piping chocolate onto a curved surface, to create a lattice, or fretwork.

I suppose the down-side of the piping approach is that it would still take quite a long time to generate an entire large-size egg's worth. Although it's likely rather quicker than generic 3D printing, it would probably still make for a rather pricey easter egg.
I wonder whether it would be feasible to mechanise the piping, or use some sort of multiplexer.
-- Loris, Nov 15 2022


Translucency needs sugar glass doesn't it?
-- Voice, Nov 15 2022


Ok I would think a half shell as used in commercial eggs could be mounted in a die and have the holes punched through. Have three nested ones like this. Assemble with sturdy Chocolate spacers welded on. I'm sure it's doable. The shells can be thick and the holes relatively small; the amazing appearance would come from clever design.
-- pocmloc, Nov 15 2022


...white and whipped and full of cream
-- Voice, Nov 16 2022


//Even if you can come up with an economical way to make these at your price point, they'll be fragile and tend to break in shipping. If these was a transparent (or at least neutrally coloured translucent) solid core and inter-layers they might be more robust.//

I think they may not be /too/ fragile, provided any chocolate wires have a reasonable cross-section. With what is reasonable depending on the architecture.
Indeed, for large easter-eggs a certain frangibility is desirable, since they cannot be ingested in one mouthful.

Regarding translucent layers, I have reservations. Flavoured boiled sweets might allow the creation of coloured windows. Which would be very exciting. But incorporating them might be more trouble than it's worth.

//Ok I would think a half shell as used in commercial eggs could be mounted in a die and have the holes punched through//

I too think this could work. If the half-mould was designed to match a hand-operated punch with an interchangable die, this could be fairly quick on a production line without too much expensive machinery. Hopefully the cut-outs could be recycled, or perhaps given a good home.
-- Loris, Nov 16 2022


//cut-outs could be recycled//
If it's just pure chocolate, back in the vat!
-- neutrinos_shadow, Nov 16 2022



random, halfbakery