Easter is almost upon us!
By now I’m usually about 5 Easter eggs in, so I’m pretty happy with my very restrained 3…and only the small ones too! I just love Easter choc okay? No judging eyes welcome here. Especially not when I’m about to blow your mind with these extreme Easter nests! Think of how good a normal easter nest is, then triple it and you’ll be close to these. They’re also ridiculously moreish, so invite some friends over otherwise you’ll end up eating two three in a row!
The secret to excellent Easter nests are all in your cereal choice I think. For me, nothing beats shredded wheat. It maybe the worst cereal known to man when eaten with milk, but smother it in chocolate and its just SO GOOD. And it looks the most ‘nest’ like, so it gets points for aesthetic value as well. So you might be questioning what makes these extreme Easter nests? When they look like regular chocolate and cereal combo’s. The nest itself is actually a combination of salted caramel, condensed milk, and shredded wheat. Its a gamechanger! They do take a little more time and care to make, as you have to mould the mixture into the ‘nest’ shape by hand. But its so worth it for that salty sweet chewy combination.
Now you maybe thinking that there isn’t enough chocolate in these Easter nests, and I’d absolutely agree! Hence my chocolatey centre for the eggs to nestle onto. It’s not just plain chocolate though, oh no. That’d be too simple, and these are extreme Easter nests! (Bored of me saying that yet?)
I combined chocolate and praline to make a deliciously caramelly and nutty centre to the nests. It pairs so well with the salted caramel nest and is the perfect base for copious amounts of mini eggs to lay on. I found ‘micro’ eggs in Sainsburys that I thought looked super cute with their vibrant colours. But I couldn’t resist also adding some regular sized mini eggs too!
If you can wait, I think the easter nests taste their best the next day after they’ve really ‘set’. I won’t blame you if you dig in before that though!
Extreme Easter Nests
Ingredients
Nests
- 8 shredded wheat biscuits
- 225 g caster sugar
- 75 g salted butter
- 397 g condensed milk
- 1 tsp sea salt
Praline
- 25 g blanched almonds
- 25 g blanched hazelnuts
- 100 g caster sugar
Topping
- 200 g milk chocolate
- 2 bags of mini eggs
Instructions
- For the nests: Firstly, line a 12-hole muffin tin with paper cases and set aside. Then in a medium bowl, break up the shredded wheat into thin strands and set aside.
- For the salted caramel: Pour the sugar into a large saucepan making sure its in an even layer. Heat over a medium heat for 1-2 minutes until patches of the sugar begin to liquify. Stir this into the dry sugar to spread the cooking evenly. After 5-6 minutes all of the sugar should have liquified. Continue cooking until the caramel starts smoking, then add the butter and stir well. The mixture will bubble up alot at this point, so be careful.
- Turn the heat down to low and add the condensed milk, whilst stirring continuously. Then add the sea salt and the shredded wheat strands, ensuring you stir well so every strand is coated. The mixture will set quickly and be hard to stir, so work quickly at this point.
- Then remove the pan from the heat and leave to cool slightly until cool enough to handle by hand.
- Divide the mixture between the cases, and with dampened hands, press out and up the sides to form a nest shape. Leave to set for roughly 30 minutes.
- For the praline: Whilst the nests are setting, place the sugar in a small deep-bottomed pan and placing over a medium heat. Like before, stir the sugar once it begins to liquify to coat the dry sugar. Continue this until all the sugar has liquified and the caramel is a golden-brown colour. Then stir in the nuts, coating them evenly and then pour onto a baking tray lined with parchment paper.
- Leave to cool and become brittle, and then place in a food processor and blitz to a powder. Set aside.
- For the topping: Place the chocolate into a glass bowl, set over a pan of simmering water. Stir the chocolate until melted and then remove from the heat. Stir in 50g of the praline and then divide the mixture evenly between the nests.
- Add mini eggs to each nest, and then leave to set completely at room temperature.
