An Easter Treat: Chocolate Birds Nest

I found these on another food blog called Nutritious Eats so I must share.  All you do is melt the chocolate, stir in the pretzel sticks, form the nests and stick on some Easter candy for decoration. Fun, decorative and delicious (who doesn’t love the salty-sweet combo of chocolate & pretzels?). These will double as decorations and dessert for us this year.

Doesn’t get much easier than mixing pretzels with chocolate.

Makes 10-12 nests

Half pound pretzels sticks

8 ounce semi-sweet chocolate (I used baking bars and cut them in half)
4 ounce bittersweet chocolate, broken up into smaller pieces
Easter candy- Peeps, Chocolate or Malted eggs (You can use Whopper eggs, the same as Nutrition Eats blog used or Jordan Almonds that I used because of the beautiful Easter color.  Also, Hershey's chocolate eggs work well, or any small jelly beans)

1. Line a large cookie sheet or two with wax paper or parchment paper coated with cooking spray.

2. Melt chocolate over low heat in double broiler, stirring frequently until smooth. Reserve some chocolate for dipping candy to stick in nest (about 1/3 cup). You can also melt chocolate in microwave, 30 seconds at a time, stirring frequently until totally melted.

3. Stir pretzels into chocolate, stirring well to combine. 

4.  Using a large serving spoon, place a mound of pretzels on prepared cookie sheet, forming a small nest. Let cool for a few minutes before placing candy on (can place in fridge to help speed along). 

5. Dip candy into reserved chocolate and carefully place on nest. The tricky part about making these is to not get chocolate dripped all over the place, especially on the peeps or candy eggs. I keep a damp cloth near to wipe my fingers or drips before the chocolate hardens.

6.  Put cookie sheet in the refrigerator until nests are set. You can do this ahead and take them out a hour or two before your Easter meal.