Monday Makery - Chocolate Nest

The lunch is a huge part of Easter Sunday and children get so excited by all the treats I should probably be writing a recipe for something more savoury for the day. But, I can't help but use it as a time of utter indulgence. Whilst I shall have a go at making brown sugar meringue nests with fresh berries piled high on top and I may try making some Hot Cross Buns, or rather the now ceremoniously renamed Hot Kissed Buns, after Sophia decided that the + also looked liked an X once turned to its side. 

Sophia thought it would be far more fun to create a giant chocolate nest having talked about spring and its symbols. So in the style of making sand castles we bring you our chocolate nest decorated with marzipan flowers and filled with little birds and chocolate eggs. A feast of chocolate and a table centre piece of utter edible indulgence!

This is one of the easiest and satisfying recipes for children to make and with so much spoon licking and 'checking to see if it's right' it's a fun treat just making it.

Most of the time I make chocolate cornflake cakes I make up the amounts as I go adding more chocolate or syrup as it,s needed, but as a rough idea you'll need:

• 4 tbsp of Golden syrup
• 4 tbsp of Chocolate powder or 200g melting chocolate if you prefer
• 50g of Unsalted Butter
• 150g of Cornflakes and shredded wheat
• Coloured Marzipan

Here's how:

1. Break the chocolate into small chunks and place in a non-plastic bowl. 
2. Place the bowl of chocolate over a pan of hot, but not boiling, water and stir until it is smooth.
3. Add the butter and golden syrup and stir together.
4. Whilst the bowl is cooling pour your shredded wheat into a bowl and bash it up so it looks like strands of straw. Add the cornflakes and mix the dry ingredients together.
5. Now pour on the chocolate mixture and stir it all together making sure it all gets equally covered with the yummy chocolate.

You can either make small nests in muffin cases or make one large nest like we did here. We spooned 2/3 of the mixture onto a plate making a round shape and patting it down with the back of a spoon to make it firm. Then we spooned small amounts around the edge pressing against the edge of the base to form the outside edge.

For the flowers we rolled out lumps of marzipan and cut shapes using cookie cutters and made more flowers by rolling small amounts of marzipan into balls and shaped them as we would with play dough to create petals.
Finally we put a couple of big chocolate Easter eggs inside! Nom nom!
I should have been a little quicker with the camera as the flowers were being eaten so quickly! The girls are very proud of their nest and as they're full of chocolate already thanks to all the spoon licking they're happy to save the cake for later - which is a first!