Chocolate Easter Nests

I first wanted to make Easter nests for my colleagues two years ago, but sadly I was unable to find any equivalent of Cadbury’s Mini Eggs. Last year I failed to find any such thing again… I even tried the English shop in Heidelberg, but they had run out. So when I was in England in February, I grabbed two large bags of Mini Eggs. Arriving back in Germany, I discovered that Milka have now released their own version of Mini Eggs… this is the law of sod in action!

There are probably a million recipes for these Easter nests on the Internet, but I’m going to share mine with you anyway… I tell you how to make them in Germany, so my version is totally different, obviously 😉

You will need:
Cupcake cases
A box of plain Shredded Wheat – in Germany, use the “Original” Toppas. They’re covered in icing sugar, but that doesn’t seem to hurt the nests
Plain or milk chocolate – enough to cover your Shredded Wheat – I used roughly 150g chocolate to 100 g Toppas (guessing as I didn’t actually do any weighing…)
Cadbury’s or Milka Mini Eggs (or your country’s equivalent of chocolate eggs in a colourful sugar shell)

What to do:
1. Break the chocolate up and melt it in a bowl over a pan of water. Or I suppose you could use the microwave… I don’t have one!

2. While the chocolate is melting, in a large mixing bowl break the Shredded Wheat/Toppas into bits. If you’re using Toppas, the ones with most icing sugar might be a little harder to crush – don’t worry if there are some slightly larger bits in there a this point.

3. Ad the melted chocolate to the mixing bowl and stir the Shredded Wheat/Toppas and the chocolate together until the Shredded Wheat is completely coated. While stirring, you can crush any larger bits of Toppas that didn’t crush earlier.

4. Place roughly a dessert spoon of the mixture into each of your cupcake cases and use a teaspoon to push some of the mixture up the sides, leaving a dent in the middle. Be careful not to make a hole in the bottom though!

5. Place 2-3 Mini Eggs in each of the nests. If you think your nests are too dry for the eggs to stick to, you can use a bit of melted chocolate as glue.

6. Place the Easter nests in the fridge for at least half an hour to set. Once they’re ready, you’ll be able to take the cakes out of their cases and they’ll look just like miniature bird’s nests!

Aren’t they cute?

Now go and check out Manda’s recipe post for a different take on edible Easter nests!

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Friday letters

Briefly interrupting my Berlin tales because it’s Friday again already, and that means it’s letters time!

Red Norwegian Letter Box (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Dear Berlin. I had a wonderful time visiting you. Shame it was so short. I promise to come back some day.

Dear self. Your holiday is over now, so it’s time to start exercising and eating healthily again. Don’t forget, in just over three months you’re going to have to stand at the front of a church!

Dear readers. No, the above letter wasn’t some weird way of subtly telling you I’m getting married (HA! The chances of that EVER happening are slim at best). Actually, I’m going to be a godmother, and I couldn’t be any more excited. It’s such an honour to be asked!

Mmmm, Twix! (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Dear muesli bar. At just 82 calories I am aware that you are much better for me than a bar of chocolate (246 calories for a 50g Twix!!), but why do you have to taste so awful?! Today I had an apple and pear one, which I managed to force down because it was my breakfast and I would be getting nothing else until lunch time, but it was not nice! All sweet and sticky and just ugh!

Dear Rach (aka The Pink Rachael – read her blog here). Thank you sooo much for my Easter bar of Cadbury’s chocolate! It was waiting for me when I came back from Berlin and has already been consumed. (Well, I had to get rid of it before returning to my healthy eating plan, right? ;-))

Dear boyfriend. Every time I think things are moving forward, we have another conversation like the one on Tuesday night and I’m back to feeling like nothing has changed. Admittedly whisky was involved on Tuesday, but why does it always have to feel like one step forward and two steps back?

Enough for today! If you feel like joining in, don’t forget to link back to The Sweet Season blog (click on the image below to go there)

Happy Friday everyone! I hope you have a fabulous weekend.

Why?

* Why is it impossible to buy malt vinegar or fruit squash in Germany (except in English shops which don’t count)?

* Why are the people on my floor incapable of learning that the crappy wooden cooking implements we have do not belong in the dishwasher?

* Why is my bosses dog obsessed with my shoes?

* Why do days and months go by so fast while hours crawl by at tortoise speed?

* Why are these sour cream and onion flavour stacker crisps so addictive?

* Why was fizzy bottled water ever invented?

* Why is every single bar of Cadburys chocolate available in German shops (except the Curly Wurlys in Rewe) some weird American type that doesn’t even exist in the UK; where Cadbury’s was invented?

* Why are Americans so obsessed with peanuts? There are peanuts in almost every one of the aforementioned chocolate bars!

* Why is love not enough to make some people happy?

* Why does the nice bit of autumn where it’s still vaguely warm and all the leaves are pretty colours only last about 30 seconds?

* Why do I keep checking Amazon for new book recommendations when I can’t even afford to buy the ones that are already on my list?

* Why is eating healthily so expensive? For the price of a packet of tomatoes I could buy 5 chocolate bars!

* Why did I just write this list?

Questions over questions as my boyfriend would say.

My week

This week has been pretty good. Not very eventful, but nice anyway. Here are some highlights:

* I’ve seen my boyfriend every day this week. Or at least I will have by the time he comes round tonight. Admittedly some of those days the only reason I saw him was because he stayed over the night before, so it was sort of inevitable that I would see him for breakfast, but still, it was nice.

* I finally got the assignment back that I handed in over a month ago. I got 81%!! I thought I’d done well, but was only expecting something in the 70s (75 is an excellent mark in my eyes!). When I saw the 81% at the top of the paper I nearly fell off my chair, then had to check to make sure it really was my assignment. It was. The mark is subject to confirmation by the exam bored but I’m fairly sure they won’t change it that much. I’m sure my tutors know what they’re doing…

* As a reward for getting 81%, Jan (aka “the boyfriend”) bought me a pack of 3 Curly Wurlys. I’m sure now those of you in the UK are now thinking “and? What’s so exciting about Curly Wurlys?” Well, believe me. Once you’ve lived abroad long enough anything that comes from your home country is something special, even things that you hardly bothered with when you were in your home country. Cadburys chocolate is incredibly rare here. And that which they do have doesn’t even exist in England. And Curly Wurlys have that added nostalgia factor. YAY.

That’s about it really. Like I said, not very eventful, but I thought it was good.