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Homemade Easter Eggs Are a Beloved Treat–and a Big Moneymaker–for Rural Congregations [1]
['Zack Harold', 'The Daily Yonder', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus', 'Display Inline', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar', 'Where Img', 'Height Auto Max-Width', 'Vertical-Align Bottom .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar']
Date: 2025-04-17
When pastor John Langenstein found out he’d been assigned to North View United Methodist Church in Clarksburg, West Virginia, everyone he talked to had the same response:
“‘Oh, you’re going to the egg church.’ Didn’t matter who I was talking to, ‘You’re going to the egg church,’” Langenstein remembers. “I said ‘OK, well, that will be interesting.’ And then (they said), ‘Oh, you’re not ready.’”
Langenstein knew all about hard boiled Easter eggs, plastic Easter eggs and the candy versions from Cadbury and Reese’s. But the eggs for which North View was famous were something much more special.
For nearly three decades, the church has been cranking out shiny chocolate Easter eggs decorated with delicate sugar flower petals. They are available in three generous sizes and six flavors: coconut, cherry nut, maple nut, solid chocolate, peanut butter, and butterfinger.
The eggs are hand-made in North View’s basement. Langenstein might run the show upstairs in the sanctuary, but down here he’s just another volunteer.
The kitchen is Serena Ashcraft’s domain.
“The molds are double-coated and ready to go,” she explained during a recent visit. “We’ll put filling in them. And we’re doing maple nut this morning.”
Serena Ashcraft and her husband Danny coat eggs in North View’s basement kitchen. (Photo by Zack Harold)
Ashcraft and fellow member Janet Shanholtz run North View’s egg brigade. Ashcraft handles the daytime and Shanholtz handles the evening crew. Together the women order supplies, organize sales and manage five shifts of volunteers each week: two on Mondays and Tuesdays, plus a Saturday shift.
That’s necessary — because North View cranks out between 6,000 and 8,000 eggs in a typical year. Each one contains filling made by 87-year-old Nadene Holt. She has held that job since the very first Easter egg sale at North View, in 1997.
“The people are dead now that I started with,” Holt said. “They said ‘We’re going to do Easter eggs. Nadene, do you want to help?’ I said, sure. And here I am.”
Nadene Holt mixes egg filling while fellow volunteer Nancy Bain stuffs it into coated egg molds. (Photo by Zack Harold / Daily Yonder)
The origins of the church-made chocolate Easter egg are kind of hazy. According to research by folklorists Mira Johnson and David J. Puglia, these delicacies appear to have first shown up in the mid-20th century in central Pennsylvania. Today, the eggs seem to be largely a central Appalachian phenomenon — showing up in Pennsylvania as well as Ohio, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina and, of course, West Virginia.
The history of North View’s eggs is easier to track. In the late 1990s, church member Ruth Jaumot helped out with an egg fundraiser at nearby Bridgeport High School. That gave the church’s pastor an idea. He asked Jaumot to make them for the church as well.
“So the recipes were copied down. These are the same recipes we’ve been using for 26 years. But the flavors have really not changed throughout that time,” Langenstein said.
There has been one change, actually. The church added Butterfinger after a few years and it is now a customer favorite.
“You’d be surprised what it is,” Holt said. “It’s peanut butter and candy corn, melted.”
Since candy corn is difficult to source in the spring, the church makes sure to purchase an ample supply after Halloween.
“We get a call from Serena and she says ‘Y’all better be out there. It’s a dollar for a big bag,’” Langenstein said. “We get all we can.”
The recipes are typed out on a well-worn, stained sheet of copy paper. But Holt doesn’t need that. She knows all the recipes by heart, scooping and mixing the ingredients in her worn KitchenAid mixer.
North View’s original recipe sheet, with the Butterfinger recipe scribbled on the bottom. (Photo by Zack Harold / Daily Yonder)
She knows exactly how to get the dough to the perfect consistency: not too sticky, not too dry.
“See how it lines up around the beater? It’s pretty much ready to come off,” Holt said during a recent production day. “It still looks sticky so I need to add a little bit more sugar.”
Once the filling is ready, volunteers ball it up and stuff it into the chocolate-coated egg molds. After the eggs are filled, they put one final layer of melted chocolate across the bottom to seal everything up.
It looks easy, but North View volunteers say this is the trickiest part. Too little coating and the filling will dry out and get crumbly. Too much and the egg will be difficult to remove from the mold, potentially ruining the whole thing.
Doing it right requires lots of practice, a steady hand and the help of a secret weapon: North View’s collection of vintage 1970s hot plates.
Like Holt, the hot plates have been part of the fundraiser from the very beginning. Volunteers use them to keep the chocolate flowing while they coat the molds. By chance, they proved perfect for the job.
“Without trying, these hot plates keep it where the chocolate tempers,” Langenstein said.
Tempering is a delicate process where chocolate is heated to right around 110 degree Fahrenheit before cooling. This stabilizes the crystals in the cocoa butter, creating that shiny, smooth — and shelf-stable — look that you see in commercially made candies.
“We’ve just not found anything as good as these 1970-whatever hot plates,” Langenstein said.
Well worn but still working, North View’s hot plates are the secret to the eggs’ shiny, snappy chocolate coating. (Photo by Zack Harold / Daily Yonder)
Now stuffed and coated, the eggs go into the freezer to set up. They emerge after 20 to 30 minutes, ready to receive the finishing touch: a tiny, handmade flower made from egg whites and more powdered sugar. Church member Andrea Fazzalare makes them at home on wax paper.
“She starts before Christmas on these,” Ashcraft said.
Andrea had 6,000 ready when the church started egg production in January.
“And she’s probably going to make another thousand before we’re done,” Langenstein said.
Flowers made of egg whites and powdered sugar adorn North View’s eggs. (Photo by Zack Harold / Daily Yonder)
Completed eggs go just across the hall to a storage room. It’s aptly called “the egg room.”
“This is a sacred spot, locked up all year just in preparation for when it can be filled,” Langenstein said. “We have … five shelves here. They will all be filled by the end of the season.”
This is where the eggs are packaged and labeled, ready to go to local beauty parlors, tire shops and car dealerships. Local small businesses sell the eggs and collect the money for the church.
“Babies,” which are about the size of a Reese’s egg, cost $3. The church charges $7 for a half-pound “medium” egg. Full-pound large eggs — which look like something a chocolate emu might lay — sell for $9.
Church volunteer Pat George puts flowers on completed eggs. (Photo by Zack Harold / Daily Yonder)
North View also sets up its own sales at the courthouse, the local VA hospital, the mall and other locations around town.
“Last year they set us up by Hallmark, and Hallmark didn’t want us down there because we were competition to them,” Holt said.
North View eggs are renowned well beyond the Clarksburg area, too.
“I’ll go to a meeting up in Wheeling or down in Charleston and somebody will say, ‘Oh is it egg season? Medium cherry nut, small coconut, make the medium a white chocolate, I want milk chocolate for the other,’” Langenstein said. “People are ready. They have their order. Sometimes before they say ‘hello.’”
North View pastor John Langenstein surveys the available supply in the “egg room.” (Photo by Zack Harold / Daily Yonder)
The church also ships eggs all across the country. The sale generates tens of thousands of dollars for the congregation each year. Over the years, North View has used that money to purchase everything from new carpet to a new organ.
But Langenstein says the biggest benefit of the church’s annual egg campaign is the way it brings the congregation together.
“Easter is a long season here. One of the best parts of this whole process, other than that it helps support the work of the church, is it’s just fun. For as much work as it is, and as much of a taskmaster Serena can be, we get all generations coming in. Last year our youngest person helping out with eggs was six years old,” he said.
That’s the kind of legacy that will outlive even a 1970s hot plate.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this article misspelled Nadene Holt’s first name.
Zach Harold is a ninth-generation West Virginian, foster dad, bluegrass musician and an award-winning freelance writer, radio producer and documentary filmmaker based in Charleston, West Virginia. In his spare time, he continues his quest for the perfect hot dog.
“Living Traditions” is a multimedia project about folklife in central Appalachia. In this series, we bring you an assortment of stories about traditional cultural practices, both time-honored and emergent.
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https://dailyyonder.com/homemade-easter-eggs-are-a-beloved-treat-and-a-big-moneymaker-for-rural-congregations/2025/04/17/
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