There are so many versions of the classic chocolate crispy cake! Some chewy, some crunchy and using varying types of cereal, syrup and even marshmallows. So with a couple of bake sales taking place at school, we decided to play around with a few different recipes to make some yummy Easter treats.

Obviously, the children were very interested in helping and with no raw egg and no real cooking involved, these are the perfect recipes to get the kids involved, whatever their ages. The only thing you need to be a bit careful of is melting the chocolate over simmering water, I didn’t appreciate the intense heat of the steam trapped under the bowl and was pleased that I hadn’t asked one of the kids to remove it!

As we were going with an Easter theme, it seemed the best place to start was with the classic bird nest cakes. I remember visiting a friends house when I was a child and making crispy cakes with the addition of black treacle for chewiness. I loved the almost liquorice, deep molasses flavour that the treacle added but couldn’t find a recipe that included it, so I made one up! The kids fought over licking the bowl, so I think it was a success but when I make them again, I might even add a third spoon of treacle!

10-12 Black Treacle Bird Nest cakes

Ingredients:

• 125g milk chocolate
• 25g unsalted butter
• 2 tbsp black treacle
• 75g shredded wheat (approx 4), crushed
• 1 bag mini eggs

Method:

• Place the chocolate, butter and treacle in a glass bowl and place it onto a saucepan containing a couple of inches of water
• Heat the water to a simmer, turn off heat and leave the ingredients to melt

• Once melted, remove the bowl from the pan (taking care of the steam trapped under the bowl) and stir to combine
• Add the crushed shredded wheat and stir until it is completely covered in the chocolate mix
• Spoon into paper cases, pressing the mix together and forming a nest shape
• Place 2-3 mini eggs in each nest (depending on how many you now have after they have been sitting on the table throughout the assembling process!!)
• Pop into the fridge for an hour to set the chocolate

Next, we got gooey with marshmallows! This one takes a little perseverance as you can get into a right old mess with it while the mix is still warm but once it has cooled, with a little icing sugar sprinkled over, it’s really pliable and great for making shapes with biscuit cutters:

20 (approx) Chewy Mallow Flower Treats

Ingredients: 

• 200g large marshmallows
• 50g unsalted butter
• 100g crispy rice cereal (cornflakes would also work)
• Icing sugar
• Mini marshmallows to decorate

Method:

• Melt the butter and marshmallows gently in a large saucepan

• Take off the heat and stir in the cereal
• Sprinkle some icing sugar onto a nonstick surface, pan or baking sheet
• Tip the mix onto your dusted surface and sprinkle some more on top
• Gently press out the mix to about 1.5cm thick and allow to cool
• Use biscuit cutters to make shapes of your choice
• Left over mix can be pressed together to form another treat but try not to over work it as you lose the air formed by the cereal and they become quite dense

• Decorate using the mini marshmallows
• We cut some width-ways to form the flower centre and others length-ways for the petals. The cut surfaces stick fairly well but just use a little water to stick if needed

This recipe is a bit more traditional, just using some golden syrup to give the cakes a slightly chewy texture. We decided to use M&Ms instead of mini eggs this time as they are smaller and you get more of them in a packet, making them ideal for mass production!

10-12 Chewy Choc Easter Nests

Ingredients: 

• 125g milk chocolate
• 25g unsalted butter
• 2 tbsp golden syrup
• 75g shredded wheat (approx 4), crushed
• 1 bag M&Ms or Smarties

Method:

• Place the chocolate, butter and syrup in a glass bowl and place it onto a saucepan containing a couple of inches of water
• Heat the water to a simmer, turn off heat and leave the ingredients to melt
• Once melted, remove the bowl from the pan (taking care of the steam trapped under the bowl) and stir to combine
• Add the crushed shredded wheat and stir until it is completely covered in the chocolate mix

• Spoon into paper cases, forming a nest shape
• Place 3 M&Ms in each nest
• Pop into the fridge for an hour

Finally, we glammed up some basic chocolate cornflake cakes to give them a spring-time look! The maltesers imitated the large centre of a daisy and marshmallows made the perfect petals:

18-20 Crispy Malteser Daisy Cakes

Ingredients:

• 150g milk chocolate
• 25g unsalted butter
• 100g cornflakes
• 1 bag Maltesers
• Mini marshmallows
• 1 tbsp icing sugar mixed with a drop of water to form a thick paste

Method:

• Place the chocolate and butter in a glass bowl and place it onto a saucepan containing a couple of inches of water
• Heat the water to a simmer, turn off heat and leave the ingredients to melt
• Once melted, remove the bowl from the pan (taking care of the steam trapped under the bowl) and stir to combine
• Add the cornflakes and stir until it is completely covered in the melted chocolate
• Spoon into paper cases, forming a nest shape
• Dollop a bit of icing in the centre to stick 1 Malteser into each nest and surround with mini marshmallows to form the daisy petals (the marshmallows should stick to the chocolate)
• Pop into the fridge for an hour

All of these recipes have elements that are interchangeable to suit the ingredients you have. They were great fun to make with the kids and at 11, 8 & 5 they needed little supervision for most of the process. The decoration is really only limited to your imagination and as my artistic skills leave a lot to be desired, I’m sure anyone could give these a go!!

Are you planning some Easter baking over the school holidays? What are your favourite recipes for baking with children?