The Easter Bunny hops into town this weekend. There is no better way to celebrate the springtime tradition of Easter baskets brimming with sweet goodies than with locally made chocolates, candies, and pastries. These are our choices for bunnies, eggs, and springtime colors and flavors re-imagined in chocolate and pastry form.
Elaine Read and Matt Weyandt’s chocolate micro factory may only encompass 250 square feet, but you would never know it by the selection of rich, deeply flavored chocolate bars they turn out with zero added cocoa butter or soy emulsifiers. It’s all small batch at Xocolatl Chocolate with pure, single origin cacao. For Easter they created a dark chocolate bunny, an almond milk white chocolate and vanilla bean bunny, and an almond milk bunny with quinoa crunch. Purchase them singly or as a rabbit trio. They also have packages of coconut milk chocolate eggs.
Xocolatl Chocolate. 99 Krog St., Atlanta. 404-604-9642, xocoatlchocolate.com.
Cacao Atlanta Chocolate Company founder and CEO Kristen Hard has made the sustainability of chocolate her mission in life and travels the world working and educating farmers in the harvesting and fermentation process of cacao. For Easter, her bean to bar confections include a white chocolate cookies and cream bunny. Dark chocolate, hand painted nest eggs come frilled with salted caramel, coconut crème, or in solid chocolate form. They are also featuring egg shaped shortbread cookies with whimsical pastel icing dots.
Cacao Buckhead. 3035 Peachtree Rd. NW, Atlanta. 404-228-4023 and
Cacao Virginia-Highland. 1046 N. Highland Ave. NE, Atlanta. 404-842-8202, cacaoatlanta.com.
To dress up you Easter table and treat guests, Sarah O’Brien is taking pre-orders of pastries. She embodies the beauty and freshness of springtime in her Fresh Georgia strawberry galette with a buttery crust as well as her fresh Georgia ttrawberry fruit tart. To brighten your family table, add her lemon meringue tart with a mound of sweet, creamy meringue bronzed golden brown. For baskets, small bags of French Sable butter cookies in lavender or Earl Grey would add a fancy touch.
Little Tart Bakeshop Grant Park. 437 Memorial Dr. SE, Atlanta 404-348-4797 and
Little Tart Bakeshop Summerhill. 68 Georgia Ave. SE, Atlanta 404-348-4797 and
Little Tart Bakeshop Krog. 99 Krog St., Atlanta. 404-348-4797, littletartatl.com.
While checking out their incredible 15 pound chocolate Easter egg, pick up goodies for guests and baskets at Ponce City Market’s Saint Germain. The counter service French Patisserie has a glass case full of macarons with all the colors and flavors of the rainbow in addition to artisan truffles in glossy shapes infused with exotic flavors. This year they feature dark chocolate bunnies glistening in edible gold and wrapped in cellophane. They are ready to be plopped on top of artificial grass or used as place settings for Easter dinner.
Saint Germain Bakery. 675 Ponce de Leon Ave., Atlanta. 470-823-4141, facebook.com/stgermainbakery.
Just Bakery’s motto is “Eat well. Do good. Change lives.” The non profit’s mission is to train refugees, pay a liveable wage, and help in the long term resettlement process. They are taking pre-orders for take and bake Cinni minis s well as well as the customary end of Lent dessert hot cross buns, filled with currants and raisins and iced with the traditional cross.
Just Bakery. Justbakeryatl.com
