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'It cost me £4.60 for four vs £16 from Domino's. Here's how I did it, and you can too'

Domino's doesn't just do pizza, and in the run up to Easter it's added Cadbury Creme Egg cookies to its menu for a limited time – something it's been marketing a lot on TV and online. It's a whole Creme Egg inside a cookie.

MSE Olivia says: Some will think this is a clear case of 'just because you can, doesn't mean you should', while some will be salivating at the idea of what's essentially a sweet scotch egg. But I think what we can all agree on is the price for these is far from eggs-ceptional – £7.99 for two Creme Egg cookies.

Domino's codes and deals are often available, but we've never seen these included in those. They seem to neither count as a cookie, nor a dessert in the eyes of Domino's – Schrödinger's cookie, I fear (though unlike the cat, these definitely exist and are definitely expensive).

Now, I'm no Mary Berry – but I am a MoneySaver, and I was convinced I could make a 'fakeaway' version of these Creme Egg cookies cheaper myself. Here's how it went:

The ingredients are simple – cookie dough and Cadbury Creme Eggs. I wanted it to be quick too, so I opted for pre-made cookie dough. A few supermarkets sell own-brand chilled pre-made cookie dough, and based on proximity to me, I opted for M&S Belgian chocolate cookie dough, which was £3 for 300g. I don't have Asda or Tesco* near me, but these are cheaper options if you do (I can't comment on taste though).

One thing to remember, is you'll get half the number of cookies as is listed on the packaging, as you'll need two cookies worth of cookie dough to make one Creme Egg cookie. This means I was able to make four from M&S' 300g dough.

I bought my Cadbury Creme Eggs from Waitrose when it offered an eight-pack for £3.25, so about 40p per egg. This deal has since finished, but you can currently get a five-pack of Creme Eggs for £1.99 (also 40p per egg) at Farmfoods, or for £2.25 (45p per egg) at Waitrose.

So to handmake four Creme Egg cookies, it cost me £4.63, as opposed to £15.98 for four at Domino's, not factoring in any delivery charges – so a minimum £11.35 saved.

If you want to read how I made the cookies, check out 'More info' below, but I'm sure the burning question you've got is, how did they taste? Well of course, to truly know how they compare to Domino's, I had to order its version too. After suffering the humiliation of accepting two Domino's cookie boxes and a large dip (needed to reach the minimum order threshold) from the delivery driver, I roped in my two friends to embark on this taste test journey.

I was immediately struck by how the Domino's cookies (left on the image below) looked like Findus Crispy Pancakes, but they were incredibly uniform and still warm from the oven. You can see my DIY cookies on the right.

I went into my first bite of the Domino's Creme Egg cookie with an open mind, but I was left disappointed. All I could taste was the Creme Egg, the surrounding cookie was tasteless. I've had the regular Domino's chocolate chip cookies many times and I find them to be full of flavour and really rich.

Now for mine: I don't want to blow my own trumpet, but these were brilliant. They reminded me of those gourmet cookies you buy for £5 a pop at posh dessert shops. I think they had so much more flavour than the Domino's ones too. My friends completely agreed with my sentiment.

So there we have it, if you make them yourself you can save over £11, which is a staggering 71%! It's usually possible to get Creme Eggs for about 40p to 45p each on a deal (cheapest we've seen so far this year is 35p each), and if you used the Tesco 300g cookie dough* for £2.45 instead of the M&S one, you could make the cookies even cheaper than I did.

It took about five minutes of prep time, 10 minutes of cooking, and another five minutes for them to rest – 20 minutes all in. That's less time than it takes for your typical Domino's to arrive.

Tempted to give it a go? Let us know on Facebook.

Is it fun? Yes. But is it worth it?

MSE Hope says: Ever considered making your own Easter eggs? As a Brummie, I decided to take on a local hero and make my own Cadbury Easter egg to see how easy, and how cheaply, it could be done. After a bit of research I discovered you don’t need a whole lot to make your own Easter egg. All I needed was an egg-shaped mould, melted chocolate and a pinch of patience.

I chose a simple recipe online and attempted to pick up items as cheap as I could find them. I got a 95g Cadbury chocolate bar for £1.60, and an Easter egg mould for £6.99.

The total cost of ingredients and items I used is £8.59, which made one 95g egg. Now of course, that's a lot of money for one 'medium-sized' egg, as I was able to buy a 90g Cadbury’s Milk Chocolate Button egg for £1.25 on a Clubcard deal (normally £2) at Tesco – £7.34 cheaper than my DIY egg.

So if you only plan to make one or two choc eggs then doing it yourself this way definitely isn't MoneySaving. To make the DIY route actually pay off, you have to treat your mould like a kitchen investment (similar to a cake tin). To hit the £2 mark (the normal Tesco price), you'd need to make 18 eggs before your 'per-egg' cost matches the supermarket. To hit the £1.25 mark (Clubcard price), you’d need to make nearly 30 eggs.

To slash costs, you could ditch the branded Dairy Milk that cost £1.60 for a supermarket own-brand bar (usually 40p-60p). And to save on a mould (the most expensive outlay), you could perhaps use cleaned-out plastic packaging from a previous year’s egg to bring your cost way down.

How do you make them? There are loads of basic Easter egg recipes online, which you can use to get more of an idea, but in an eggshell, you simply melt your chocolate, pour it into the mould, and leave it to cool before joining the two sides together.

Store your mould upside down in the fridge on either a piece of baking paper or a sheet of foil. Storing it upside down helps the chocolate to run down the edges where you need to join the egg.

Sticking them together is the tricky part. Use the heat from your hands to warm the back of the mould and then pop out your halves. Recipes online recommended using a warm piece of baking paper to connect the sides. Me? I spooned more melted chocolate around the sides, but in hindsight I should have used a piping bag to make this process a bit neater.

While I kept my egg plain, you could easily decorate yours with icing and other decorations, so it could definitely be a fun, family-friendly activity.

Before we view my… urm… creation, I would like to say my egg mould was rather flat because it was on the cheaper end of moulds. I’ve since spotted more dome-shaped moulds for the same price.

Above (left) is my homage to my favourite Looney Tunes character, the Road Runner, which has a rather uncanny likeness, if you ask me…

Out of the handful of people who tasted both eggs, several felt the homemade egg tasted more like a bar of Cadbury’s chocolate than the Buttons egg. One person put it down to the difference in texture.

If you want a cheap chocolate fix, stick to supermarkets' Easter egg deals. But if you want to make some fun for the kids, and cut down on plastic waste, then get cracking! Will you try making your own Easter egg? Let us know on Facebook.

Including free downloadable clues

A big part of Easter is the fun of a scavenger hunt! If you fancy doing one yourself, you could hide small chocolate eggs in foil around the home, or if you've not got any eggs, why not use small toys or other treats instead? If you already have reusable plastic eggs that pop apart (think the inside of Kinder Surprise eggs), then you're set – but otherwise small Tupperware or plastic food containers filled with snacks, choc, small toys, or even jokes would work.

Hobbycraft has free clue sheets you can print to help you set up the hunt, or they're eggs-tremely easy to make yourself if you've got paper and pens.

Save compared to buying the popular branded version

Branded Play-Doh usually costs about £4 for a pack of four 85g tubs, but you can easily save money by making your own playdough.

You only need four common household ingredients – vegetable oil, plain flour, table salt and food colouring, plus warm water, which should cost about £3 total. You'll be able to make more than four small tubs, so you'll save money in the long run. You can use an online recipe, such as Good Food's playdough recipe.

Use less food colouring to make a lighter shade – for example, make pink playdough with a small drop of red food colouring. It's probably best to make lighter colours anyway, as the salt dough can stain clothes and other soft furnishings.

£5 minimum spend, for Byron Club members only

Sign up to Byron Burger’s free loyalty scheme, the Byron Club, to get a free burger (normally about £9.50) on your birthday when spending £5.

You’ll be sent an email with a QR code voucher, which is valid for four weeks from the date of your birthday. Bryon Club members must dine-in and cannot use the voucher in conjunction with any other offers. See full T&Cs.

No need to buy a cinema ticket

If you sign up to the cinema chain’s free loyalty scheme, Odeon Extras, and provide your date of birth, you’ll receive a free large popcorn on your birthday (normally £5.90 to £6.40).

The free popcorn will be added to a member’s account on their birthday and will be valid for seven days. Members can pre-order via the app (Android/iOS) or scan the QR code at checkout.

You will need to be a member for at least two weeks before your birthday to get the freebie. See full terms & conditions.

Free e-books guide

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