This one’s not for the birds

The kids and I made some cute and tasty Easter treats yesterday. These no-bake Easter Nest Cookies are super easy!

You just need three ingredients: Chocolate chips, crunchy chow mein noodles and some sort of candy that looks like little eggs. We used speckled Easter M&Ms, but jellybeans or even peanuts could work.  I used a little more than one bag of milk chocolate chips for each 12 ounce bag of chow mein.

Line a couple cookie sheets with parchment or wax paper. This will keep the nests from sticking.

In a medium sized pan, melt the chocolate chips on the stove (medium heat), stirring so the chocolate doesn’t burn. This will only take a couple minutes. Remove from heat and add the noodles, stirring until they’re well coated. Then use a large spoon to drop a good-sized dollop of the chocolate chow mein mixture on your lined cookie sheets. Our nests are about 4 inches across.

Carefully check to make sure the mixture’s not too hot to touch, then use your fingers to shape each drop into the shape of a nest: circular with a little indent in the center. Move on to the next nest.

After you’re through forming the nests, the chocolate should still be sticky but not real warm (don’t want to melt your eggs!). Add a couple egg candies to the center of each nest. The chocolate will work like glue to hold them in.  Chill them in the fridge for at least 20 minutes (we left ours overnight).  To make them into little gifts, I placed each nest in a cellophane bag tied with a ribbon.

My kids are 5 and 3, so they were able to help stir the melting chocolate, help form the nests and add the egg candies (their favorite part). We thought the nests looked great using three eggs that were the same color (shades of blue, for example) or mixing it up. Either way, you can’t go wrong!