Restaurant unveils new deep fried Cadbury’s Creme Egg for Easter and it looks glorious

It’s no secret that Scottish dinners and deep frying have serious history. Whether you’re dealing with a chippy tea or an impossibly calorific munchies box, there aren’t many ingredients that Scottish chefs haven’t figured out how to batter. The creators of infamous dishes like the deep-fried Mars bar and deep-fried pizza, this is a land steeped in glorious oily tradition. Now, one restaurant has decided to take things to another level.

As reported in The Scotsman, Airdrie fish and chip restaurant Off The Hook have decided that, this Easter, what their customers really need is an extra gooey twist on the nation’s “traditional” cooked confectionary. Taking the basic principle of the battered Mars bar, owners Johnny Chung, 34, and wife Lee Chung, 31, have decided to unleash deep fried Cadbury’s Creme Eggs on their clientele. It’s what Easter’s all about.

According to staff at the restaurant, the idea of a cooked Creme Egg was no accident. The owners actually set members of the public a challenge of coming up with an apt way to celebrate Off The Hook’s five year anniversary by voting for what weird item they would like to see featured on the menu. By an overwhelming margin, the people’s choice was for Cadbury’s signature seasonal special.

On the surface, deep frying chocolate might seem like a relatively simple task. However, it’s a tad more complex than simply drenching a sweet in batter and plunging it into a bath of hot oil. Deep fried Mars bars, for instance, is usually chilled before entering the oil, to hopefully ensure the whole thing doesn’t disintegrate into a gooey mess by the time the batter has crisped up. Technical issues like this mean there’s more to cooking a chocolate egg than meets the eye.

The situation was even more complicated for the couple, as it turns out that neither of them had ever attempted deep frying chocolate before, let alone featured it on the menu. However, according to The Scotsman, it did not take them long to settle upon a light, tempura-style batter to use as their coating. After a few test-runs, they decided to add the eggs to the menu for the very reasonable price of £1 per serving.

Discussing whether their latest addition to the lineup was a flop or a hit, Lee revealed that the Creme Eggs were proving deeply divisive. “We have had a lot of people coming in – a lot of people have said it’s disgusting, I think it’s a love or hate thing.,” she revealed, before adding, “I love it, they’re really good. The fondant goes all gooey in the middle and syrupy, it’s nice.” Though she couldn’t provide any exact figures, Lee also claimed that the restaurant had already “…sold quite a few.”

Unfortunately for anyone eager to try out the new creation for themselves, it looks like the deep fried egg window may be relatively small. When asked about how long she intends to keep the item on the menu, Lee opined “To be honest we do quite a lot of specials and if they do really well we do keep them on the menu, but honestly I can’t see us doing this. It is quite hard to get Creme Eggs the rest of the year after Easter.” Bad news for those hoping for year round access to deep fried dairy milk and fondant.