Crispy Treat Nests

I try really hard to make our favorite baking ideas applicable all year round, and Easter nests are one of my favorite things.  I hosted a dinosaur party a couple of weeks ago and was trying to think of a dinosaur themed crispy treat.  I was also in my Easter mode and so nests were on my mind and then I thought why not make ‘pterodactyl nests’.  I made fruity pebble crispy treats as they seem to be all children’s favorites.

But instead of putting them in rectangular cake pan and cutting them out with cookie cutters, I piled a spoonful of the crispy treats into muffin cases. 


Once they were cool I used a spoon to flatten out the center to make a nest shape.  If you try to do that when the crispies are hot, they will just stick to the spoon.  I could have left the nest just like that and filled them with eggs and chicks for Easter, but because it was for a party I needed the nests to be very durable so I could get them to the party and then the children could get them home as favors, without them falling apart.  I melted some white candy melts and used a basting brush to put a layer on top of the nests.

Once it was dry, I turned the nests over and coated the bottom to make them really strong and taste extra sweet.


I piped a ring of icing around the nest and covered in with flower sprinkles to make a pretty dinosaur nest and then I added some big flowers made from mini M&Ms glued onto a mini nilla wafer with icing.

At the party the boys put more jelly beans around their nests to look as if they were built from rocks and they made ‘man eating’ flowers.  We also topped the nests with pterodactyl cookies.  So you can now make Easter nests year round and make them dinosaur, lizard, snake or birds nests.