Chocolate Crispy Nests

As a child I always remember making chocolate rice crispy nests at Easter and I’ve never made them with my children.  I was determined to this year as they are so easy. 
First I melted the chocolate chips on 50% power in the microwave. I put it in for a minute, stir it and then put it in for another 45 seconds on 50% power and that is usually enough to melt the chocolate.


I’m not sure the exact quantities I used because I tend to throw in what looks about enough and hope for the best. I think about 1/4 cup of chocolate chips and 1/2 cup of rice crispies will make one nest, so just increase your quantities for however many nests you need. You can also use corn flakes instead of rice crispies.
Once the chocolate is melted, stir in the rice crispies and spoon into muffin cases.
 
Cupcake cases aren’t quite big enough. If the nest is too small you can’t fit many eggs inside or the chick on top. Use a spoon to flatten the center to make room for the eggs and chick.

My daughter decorated the nests for me and for some reason I don’t have a photo of the chocolate crispy nest with a chick in it.  If you don’t want to make the oreo truffle chicks, you can buy any kind of chick to go in the nest.  Peeps work really well but you could just put a toy chick in too.  I just always prefer something I can eat.


And just to prove that decorating crispy treat nests isn’t just for little girls, my step son made a minimalist ‘manly’ chick.

Chocolate Pretzel Nests

Last year I made chow mien marshmallow nests (it sounds really yucky but actually they were pretty good) with peeps chicks in them but this year I wanted to try something different.  I made the oreo truffle chicks so they needed nests to sit in.  I had lots of chocolate chips, so I started with those – white chocolate would have done just as well.
First I melted the chocolate chips on 50% power in the microwave.  I put it in for a minute, stir it and then put it in for another 45 seconds on 50% power and that is usually enough.


Then I put some pretzel sticks in the bowl too and crushed them a bit with a spoon so that the sticks weren’t quite so long.


Then I mixed the pretzels well so they were covered with chocolate and put a large spoonful into muffin cases.  I used the spoon to press down in the center to make a nest shape.

When the chocolate was dry my 3 year old daughter and her friend decorated the nests for me using flower sprinkles stuck on with a blob of icing, and then filled them will chocolate eggs and jelly beans.  We topped the nest with one of the little truffle chicks.


It was a cute little craft for the girls and really easy for children of any age.  I had my son’s preschool class decorate nests last year, so even with very little icing experience it’s a lot of fun.

Oreo Truffle Recipe

My Mother in Law always makes oreo truffles at Christmas and I love them.  I’m always looking for ways to make them year round.  The recipe is so simple and versatile that you can use it for everything from cake pops to dinosaur fossils and you can roll it, cut it or shape it almost any way you want. 
The Recipe
1 block of cream cheese
1 16-18oz pack of Oreos (store brand cheap ones work just as well)
Put the oreos in a food processor and pulse until you have fine crumbs.  Add the block of cream cheese and turn the food processor on high until the crumbs and the cream cheese form a lump.  Form the truffle mix into whatever shape you need.

I like to make balls and insert lollipop sticks to make very rich cake pops.  The great thing about using this recipe rather than the proper cake pop recipe is you can freeze the truffle mix and then when you dip the balls in whatever coating you choose, it cools instantly and you don’t have to worry about drips or how to hold the pop while the coating dries.  You can also roll it out and then use mini cookie cutters to make toppers for cupcakes.  It really is such a versatile recipe and the truffles taste sooo good.
These are some of the things I’ve made from the truffle mix
Dinosaur Fossils

Christmas Tree cupcake toppers

Snowmen cupcake toppers

Easter Chicks

Buttercream Icing Recipe

I’ve never used a recipe for buttercream but one this has evolved over the last few years and I always get complimented on my icing.
Ingredients
1 stick of butter (softened)
1 block of cream cheese (softened)
about 1/2 cup Crisco or vegetable shortening
2lb bag of confectioners sugar
2 teaspoons flavor (optional)
about 1/4 cup water

Mix the butter, cream cheese and Crisco for about 2 minutes on medium speed until they are well mixed.  Add the flavor if you are using one.  If you want white icing, make sure your flavor is clear as a brown vanilla flavor for instance will make your icing slightly cream colored. 
Slowly add the sugar and once the icing stiffens (this is the hard part because I just do it by instinct) add more water a teaspoon at a time until all the sugar is gone and you have icing that is easily spreadable.  I make my icing much less stiff if I know that children will have to push it through a piping bag than if I have to pipe swirls on a cupcake.  If you use the whole 1/4 cup of water and the 2 teaspoons of flavor, your icing will be quite soft.  If it gets too soft you can just add more confectioners sugar and similarly if it’s too hard you can just add more water, but only a tiny bit at a time.

Crispy Treat Recipe

I’ve always loved rice crispy treats.  My Mom used to make little nests with us at Easter using rice crispies covered in chocolate, so one day I tried to make them with my children.  I didn’t have a recipe and they were OK, but then last Christmas we tried to make a recipe I’d found in a magazine which used Fruity Pebbles cereal instead and my kids were hooked.  Every child I’ve ever fed them to has loved them.

The Recipe – It’s super easy!
Melt a stick of butter with a 10oz bag of mini marshmallows over a low heat, stirring continuously or else they will burn on the bottom of the pan. 

Add an 11oz box of Fruity Pebbles or any other cereal your children love.

Mix well and put into a baking pan lined with waxed paper. If you try to work with the crispy treats when they are warm they just stick to your hands, and everything else. Leave them in a big heap for about 20 minutes until they are cool and less sticky.

For the hearts below I pressed the crispy treats into the pan until they were about an inch thick, but sometimes I need them thicker if I’m making a 3-D shape.  Press a cookie cutter into the crispy treat to get an outline of the shape.  Unless you are using very sharp metal cutters, they probably won’t go all the way through, so use a knife to cut along the outline.

 
Anything you can make out of cookie dough you can usually make out of a crispy treat, but less detailed designs work best.
For the hearts below, which I used for my son’s preschool party, I inserted a lollipop stick into the heart so it would be easier for the children to hold while they were decorating and eating the crispy treat.

Then I dipped the hearts in red candy melts.  You have to push the crispy treats together quite hard so that they are firm enough to be dipped.  Also make sure you get the candy melt over the stick slightly, so that it holds the heart in place.  You can also use a basting brush to brush the candy coating onto the crispy treat.

Make sure you follow the melting directions on the back of the candy melt package.  The first time I used them I didn’t and over cooked the candy.  It went hard and was unusable.  I now know that if it goes hard you can add a couple of tablespoons of Crisco and it will go liquid again.  I usually do that anyway as it makes the candy melts more liquid and easier to use, and also you use less because they are quite expensive.

Then I sprinkled pink sugar on a few…….

…..heart sprinkles on some others……..

…..and conversation hearts on the others. My son’s class loved them.

My Favorite Cake & Cupcake Recipe

This is my all time favorite cake recipe and can be made as a vanilla, chocolate or butterscotch cake.  I’ve never made it for anyone who hasn’t loved it.  It’s from Taste of Home (anyone who knows me, knows that Taste of Home is where all my good recipes come from).   If you compare the original recipe to mine you’ll see that I’ve made a couple of changes, but it’s basically the same.

Ingredients

• 1 package (18-1/4 ounces) vanilla or chocolate cake mix (depending on which flavor cake you are making)
• 1 package (3.9 ounces) instant vanilla or butterscotch or chocolate pudding mix (depending on which flavor cake you are making)
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup (8 ounces) sour cream
• 3/4 cup vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup water
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cup (6 ounces) semisweet white chocolate or butterscotch or chocolate chips (depending on which flavor cake you are making)

 

• For Vanilla cakes - use vanilla cake mix and white chocolate chips.
• For Butterscotch cakes - use vanilla cake mix and butterscotch chips
• For Chocolate cake - use any chocolate cake mix and chocolate chips

Directions

• In a large bowl, combine the cake mix, pudding mix, eggs, sour cream, oil, water and sugar. Beat on low speed for 30 seconds. Beat on medium for 2 minutes. Stir in chocolate chips if using chocolate chips (for other chips, see directions below).
• Pour into a greased and floured 10-in. Bundt pan. Bake at 350° for 50-55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes; remove from pan to a wire rack to cool completely.
• For cupcakes or mini cupcakes bake them for 12-18 minutes until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. 
• For regular round cakes bake for 20-25 minutes until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
• If the cake is not quite cooked, the center will fall when it cools.  It almost tastes better if it’s slightly uncooked as it’s extra moist.
• If you are adding white chocolate or butterscotch chips I find that if I add them to the batter they fall to the bottom of the pan and burn.  I cook the cake for about 10 minutes and then scatter the chips on top.  They fall into the center of the cake.  For cupcakes bake for about 5 minutes and then scatter them on top.

 

• Whether you make this recipe as cupcakes or a cake, they freeze like a dream.  I put them in a ziploc bag and freeze them flat.  If you just need a few cupcakes, pull them out of the freezer, ice them when they are frozen and leave them at room temperature and they’ll be ready to eat in about 20 minutes.

My Favorite Roll Out Cookie Recipe

Ingredients
1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 teaspoons baking powder
3 cups flour

Preheat the oven to 350. Cream butter and sugar and then beat in the egg and vanilla.  In a separate bowl mix the baking powder and flour.  Add one cup at a time to the sugar mixture, mixing well after each addition.  The dough will be very stiff but blend the last of the flour in using your hand if necessary.  Split the dough into two portions and roll on a floured surface to about 1/8 inch thick.  Cut the cookies out and place on a greased cookie sheet and bake for about 6-8 minutes or until lightly browned. 

The lighter the cookies are, the more they taste like sugar cookies, but if you cook them a couple of minutes longer, so they are light brown rather than cream colored, they taste more like short bread.

This is a great recipe for making with children as the dough doesn’t need refrigerating, and because it’s so stiff it doesn’t stick as easily to the surface you roll on. You can also add food coloring to make the dough different colors or use whole wheat flour instead of plain flour to make them healthier.  They are slightly crunchier but still taste great and my kids can never tell the difference.

These cookie will keep for about 3-4 days in an air tight tin.  They go a bit soggy after that and they don’t freeze well.  They defrost all doughy and taste a bit strange.

These are just a few of the cookies I’ve made recently using this recipe.