A chocolatier is raffling off a gigantic Easter egg weighing almost three stone - but it comes with a disclaimer. Watch how it was made here:
Nick Kittle, from Plymouth, Devon, has spent hours crafting the huge chocolate egg, which measures 3ft x 2ft x 1ft and is almost 200 times heavier than your average Easter egg.
Now, the award-winning chocolatier is putting it up for auction, with all proceeds going to charity - but given that it contains around 81,000 calories, it will come with a fairly obvious warning to the winner.
Advert
"It's made of milk chocolate and by the time it was all completely done it weighed 2st 8lb," 39-year-old Nick explained.
"I definitely wouldn't recommend anyone eating it all at once - I'm going to add a disclaimer to it!"
I mean, is it even possible to eat 81,000 calories of Easter egg in one sitting?
To build the behemoth egg, Nick - who owns Domea Favour Chocolate - spent four hours repeatedly tempering chocolate, before pouring the melted choc into an enormous mould and waiting for it to set.
The hefty half egg was then mounted on a plinth and decorated with even more chocolate, just for good measure.
Nick said: "I wouldn't know if it's the UK's biggest Easter egg but it's pretty huge. I haven't seen anything quite as big, so it possibly is.
"I bought the mould a long time ago but I was never in a position to make it and advertise it because I didn't have a shop front or a space for it to go in.
"When I opened my shop 18 months ago I was like, 'Oh yes it means I can finally get the chance to make this big egg and put it in the shop,' just so I can kind of go 'My eggs are bigger than yours.'"
Being keen on having the biggest egg around, he did attempt to create a full egg several times, but it wasn't to be.
He said: "I've tried it a couple of times in previous years to make two halves and put it together but the sheer weight of it meant it just kept breaking its own back.
"So now I've just made one half and mounted it on a plinth."
Even this was no mean feat though, and after hours of graft and patience, removing the egg from the mould was a 'nerve-racking moment'.
"[Getting the egg out] was a pain in the ass," he recalled.
"It's not like you could put one hand on the top, one hand underneath and flip it over like you would a cup of tea and a coaster.
"I bought a big sheet of laminate flooring they use for loft installations so it could be sterilised.
"It was belly up. I put the piece of wood, that was clean and sterile, across the top. I used a set of four ratchets, fed them underneath and wrapped it to this piece of wood.
"A friend of mine [helped]. It was all or nothing and [I thought], 'If it breaks it breaks, if it doesn't we're in.' It was just a case of holding our breath and on three, bang, over it went and luckily it worked. That was a nerve-wracking moment."
Nick is selling raffle tickets for the egg, with the profits going to St Luke's Hospice.
Topics: Food And Drink, Easter
Jake Massey