1. Place the dragon egg mold on a small metal tray in the freezer for 20 mins to chill.

2. Place all chocolate egg ingredients, except coconut sugar and maple syrup, in a small glass bowl (I used my 2 cup glass measuring cup as it's easy to pour out of it in the next step) and stir together with a spoon until all cocoa powder clumps are dissolved and the mixture is smooth. Add in the coconut sugar and maple syrup and stir it in to incorporate. Allow this mixture to cool slightly until it's still stirable but not hot.

3. Have a large glass bowl handy on the counter. Pull the mold out of the freezer (keep it on the metal tray). Pour in enough of the chocolate mixture to fill each cavity in the mold ⅔ of the way up. Swirl the chocolate around in the mold to make sure all sides are fully coated. Flip the mold upside-down over the bowl to pour out the extra chocolate from the center of the mold into the glass bowl to empty it out (so the eggs become "hollow"). Flip the mold back up and place on the metal tray. Wipe of extra chocolate around the egg cavities. Freeze for 15 mins to set.

4. Repeat step 3 to add a second coating of chocolate to the eggs and then hollowing out the center by pouring out excess chocolate mixture back into the bowl. Note 1: before getting started on this step, make sure your chocolate mixture is still liquid enough to pour and coat. If it looks like it thickened a bit, warm it up very gently in a double boiler and stir before re-filling the eggs. Freeze for 20 mins to fully set.**** Note 2: Optional: you might want to repeat this step a third time for a thicker coating around the edges of the egg.

5. If you're planning on filling the eggs with the almond butter mixture, prepare the filling by briefly blending all filling ingredients together in a small blender (I used my magic bullet for that). Once the chocolate is fully set, carefully unmold the chocolates egg halves, flip the egg halves with the hollow part up and divide the almond butter mixture between the egg halves, smoothing it out lightly. Refrigerate the egg halves for several hours.

6. To join the eggs, warm up a baking tray in the oven until it's hot to touch (hot enough that chocolate would melt if it landed on it). Pull out the egg halves from the fridge. Briefly lay the hot pan (using oven mitts, of course!) over the top of the eggs so that it warms up the rims and melts the chocolate very slightly. Then quickly cover one half of the egg with the other, making sure the ends join together well all around. Refrigerate for 10 mins for the egg to fully set and be stuck together. ALTERNATIVELY, instead of heating up the tray and melting the chocolate egg edges to make the ends join, you can instead use some of the leftover melted chocolate to drizzle around the edges of the chilled eggs, join the two halves together, and chill briefly to make the chocolate set and bind.

7. To coat the egg with sparkling dust, simply brush the dust on lightly with a small brush all around. You can do multiple coats for a stronger shimmer or just do one coat for a very light sheen.