The Adorable 5-Ingredient Cookies I Make Every Easter

No baking required.

While some families gather for Easter brunch with deviled eggs and French toast, my family has always been a big Easter dinner family with staples like glazed ham, asparagus, and mashed potatoes on the table. That doesn’t mean we don't enjoy festive treats between the morning egg hunt and our family meal. Growing up, I could expect my grandmother’s carrot cake to make an appearance, along with bowls filled with mini Cadbury eggs.

As an adult, I like to stick to the same dishes I grew up with. There’s no way I’m missing a giant slice of carrot cake! I also make a quick and easy treat—bird’s nest cookies—every year.

Whether I’m hosting Easter for the family or having friends over for the afternoon, these no-bake cookies are ideal for sharing. They're also a fun baking projects for kids. They’re crunchy, flavored with white chocolate and peanut butter, and make for the cutest little vessel to hold a few mini Cadbury eggs.

Choosing the Right Chocolate

I like to use Ghirardelli white chocolate baking bars for this recipe. You can choose another brand of white chocolate bar or swap it for high-quality white chocolate chips. When combined with the peanut butter, the white chocolate adds sweetness but doesn’t overpower the peanut butter flavor. It also helps to bind the dry ingredients together.

If you prefer more of a chocolate-peanut butter flavor (resulting in brown nests), you can easily swap the white chocolate for dark or milk chocolate.

How To Make My No-Bake Bird’s Nest Cookies

To make 12 cookies, you’ll need:

• 1 cup (32g) Rice Krispies cereal

• 1 1/2 cups (180g) old-fashioned oats

• 8 ounces chopped white chocolate

• 1/4 cup creamy peanut butter

• Mini chocolate eggs or jelly beans

Grease a 12-well muffin pan with cooking spray and set aside. You can use a silicone muffin pan if you'd like. In a mixing bowl, stir together the Rice Krispies and oats.

Melt the white chocolate in the microwave, heating in 10-second intervals and stirring in between until smooth. Stir the peanut butter into the melted white chocolate, heating for another 10 seconds if needed to melt until smooth. Pour into the dry ingredients and stir to combine with a wooden spoon or spatula.

Add about 2 tablespoons of the mixture per well to the prepared muffin pan, using all of the mixture. Push the mixture down into the well, using your thumb or the back of a measuring spoon. Once all cupcake wells have been filled, use the back of a greased measuring spoon to push down the center of each cookie further, creating a nest shape. Add three mini chocolate eggs or jelly beans in each.

Tip

If using your fingers, lightly wetting them helps keep the mixture from sticking to your hands.

Let the nests sit at room temperature for 1 hour to firm. To speed up the process and for a firmer cookie, put the muffin pan in the freezer for 20 minutes.

Remove the nests from the pan and serve. Wedging a butter knife gently between the cookie and the pan should help it pop out.

Store the bird’s nest cookies in an airtight container at room temperature or in the fridge for up to 1 week.

Tips and Tricks for Bird’s Nest Cookies

• Add other mix-ins: The mixture of oats and Rice Krispies cereal gives these little cookies a crunchy texture. You could easily add other dry mix-ins. Consider adding 1/4 cup shredded coconut and reducing the amount of oats by 1/4 cup. You could also make these gluten-free by using a crispy rice cereal without gluten.

• Choose your eggs: Mini Cadbury eggs with crunchy candy shells are such a nostalgic treat for me. They were always the best thing to find during my childhood Easter egg hunts! I use a few of these colorful eggs on my nests, but you could mix and match them with other candies. Jelly beans are a fun option as are Robin Eggs.

• Make them with kids: This is a festive, no-bake spring treat to make with kids. They’ll love being able to help stir, shape, and add the mini eggs after forming each bird’s nest.

Read the original article on Simply Recipes.