As far as outrageous hot cross bun flavours go, Coles takes the crown this Easter with its burger sauce bun, featuring cheese and gherkins in a pale orange dough. The supermarket giant even suggests adding a patty and serving it as a burger.

“Savoury hot cross buns are the new craze,” says Kate Roff, Coles’ general manager for bakery.

It follows on from last year’s jalapeno-cheddar and Vegemite-cheese examples, and joins other limited-edition flavours of red velvet and carrot cake.

Coles is not the only retailer unleashing eccentric Easter treats this year. Aldi’s insulated “bun bag”, covered in hot cross bun images, is designed to keep two warm buns on your person at all times. The supermarket received 1100 entries in 10 days to win one of 20 bags.

Despite cost of living pressures, Australians will spend an estimated $1.7 billion on hot cross buns, chocolate eggs and other special food for Easter this year - up $200 million from 2022, according to research from Roy Morgan and the Australian Retailers Association.

Three-quarters of Australians are predicted to purchase Easter food and chocolates, with NSW residents spending an average of $108 each and Victorians $97 each. South Australians ($140 each) and Tasmanians ($112 each) are forecast to spend the most.

Experimenting with the traditional hot cross bun is risky business, but Melbourne baker Matilda Smith believes her sticky date version at Penny for Pound has the balance right.

“People like flavours that they know and love so you can definitely go too far,” she says. “But I think we’ve hit the nail on the head by choosing two really familiar, comforting items.”

Hunks of date and caramelised white chocolate mimic the pudding’s flavour while cinnamon adds a hint of Easter. It’s Smith’s favourite this year. “And I’m usually a real traditionalist.”

Woolworths launched mocha hot cross buns this Easter, but a spokeswoman said its traditional hot cross buns remained the most popular flavour.

“One of the ongoing trends we’ve seen in Easter treats is a growing demand for products that meet different dietary requirements - from vegan to no added sugar chocolate products,” she said.

Native ingredients are the stars of the hot cross buns at Sydney cafe Hearthe, opened by Black Star Pastry’s original founder Christopher The. Quandongs (native peach) soaked in orange juice and bunya nuts join cinnamon myrtle and anise myrtle, which mimic traditional spices.

Others are piping crosses onto scones (Yugen Tea Bar in Melbourne), croissants baked in a cube shape (Sydney’s Banksia Bakehouse), hot cross bun-flavoured lamingtons (Tokyo Lamington in Sydney and Melbourne) and even hotcakes (Melbourne’s Top Paddock, Kettle Black).

But it isn’t just bakers creating imaginative Easter treats.

Among the Easter eggs and bunnies lining the shelves of Kakawa Chocolates in Darlinghurst is a Fried egg on toast - a chocolate-dipped caramel marshmallow with white chocolate fried egg, and egg-shaped ladybugs filled with blackberry jelly.

Champagne, Cointreau, chilli, kalamata olives and Earl Grey tea are some of the flavours head chocolatier Jinsun Kim uses, but she draws the line at bacon. “Some chocolatiers are doing that sort of thing - that unusual flavour - but for me, I think that’s too far,” she says.

Kim estimates she will handcraft at least 5000 chocolate eggs this Easter, including custom-made confectionery commissioned by corporate customers that want chocolate with their brand colour, logo or packaging. However, her most unusual commission was from a customer who cast an intimate part of their body in silicone and asked Kim to use the mould to make chocolates.

Coles also has 14 new Easter egg flavours including fruit tingles, popping candy and Milo.

The supermarket giant also stocks Pana Organic’s new flat egg range, which the company’s chief executive Pana Barbounis said uses 80 per cent less packaging “and reduces our transport requirements with a massive 470 per cent more eggs per pallet”.

Pana’s flat eggs also taste different.

“Our flat chocolate eggs are made with a much thicker layer of chocolate, and allows us to be more generous with inclusions,” Barbounis says.

Pana Organic has also introduced new flavours for Easter - peanut butter and strawberry as well as a hot cross bun caramel chocolate egg.

Koko Black’s new Easter range includes eggs flavoured with Baileys and caramel as well as mango and passionfruit.

The Melbourne-based chocolate brand has made more than 180,000 praline eggs at its Coburg factory to meet demand, said head chocolatier Remco Brigou.

“I love experimenting and pushing boundaries to challenge tradition, reinvent classics, and rediscover local ingredients,” he says.

Rabbits are strictly forbidden at Haigh’s Chocolates, which supports the Foundation for a Rabbit Free Australia and has been selling the Easter bilby for the past three decades.

This year, it’s offering an Australian single-origin bilby and an egg filled with
chocolates containing Australian flavours such as lemon myrtle, quandong and wattleseed.

A Haigh’s Chocolates spokeswoman says Easter is the busiest time in its retail calendar: “We sell the most chocolate in the five weeks leading up to the long weekend. Last year was our biggest to date and we are on track to match, if not beat, last year’s sales.”

Five of the most adventurous Easter treats

1. Egg planet - Inspired by her daughter Sian’s school books, Kakawa Chocolates’ head chocolatier Jinsun Kim’s Egg planet is a chocolatey journey through the solar system. Large Easter eggs sparkle with stars and asteroids and are filled with chocolate stars to satisfy the hungry astronomer. kakawachocolates.com.au
2. Coles burger sauce hot cross buns - Is it really a hot cross bun? Any hint of burger sauce is mostly in the aroma; the bun itself is dominated by a sour, powdered cheese taste. Extra points for the gherkin chunks, though. $5 for four, coles.com.au
3. Pana Organic’s flat egg - This flat egg is the opposite of backward: it’s plant-based, uses less packaging and is thicker, which means more chunks of dried strawberry and chunky peanut butter, macadamia or mint crunch. $10, available at Coles, Woolworths and independent grocers or pana-organic.com
4. Haigh’s native Australian chocolates - Wattleseed, macadamias, quandong and even a Melbourne-made gin have found their way between layers of chocolate in Haigh’s all-Aussie Easter selection, tucked into a large chocolate egg. $41.90, haighschocolates.com.au
5. Penny for Pound’s sticky date hot cross bun - With a caramel glaze and caramelised white chocolate, this is more dessert than breakfast. But the presence of dried fruit and hot cross spices mean it’s still close enough to the bun you know and love. $4.50 each or $22 for six, available in Melbourne, pennyforpound.com.au