Growing up we used to look forward to Easter almost as much as Christmas because we were all chocolate fanatics and our family would always go a bit bananas and fill the house with an outrageous quantity of chocolate eggs of all kinds.
Thank goodness there are now so many great vegan milk chocolate alternatives so those with a sweeter tooth won't miss out and be limited to dark chocolate. This Easter we decided to go back to basics and share our lovely shredded wheat Easter nests with you. This is such an easy and fun recipe to make with small children and it was a lovely nostalgic experience making loads of them this week to share with friends and family over the Easter weekend. There are two options for the chocolate coating here- you can buy a lovely vegan milk chocolate alternative like Montezuma's 'Like No Udder' and simply melt that down or you can make your own raw dark chocolate.
We love Sarah Britton's raw chocolate recipe and this is the one we use to coat all kinds of sweet treats including our home made snickers bars.Doisy and Dam have some lovely vegan mini eggs which we highly recommend for the nests.
Raw Chocolate recipe: (for coating shredded wheat Easter Nests)
Ingredients:
125g cacao butter
75g cacao powder
30 ml maple syrup
pinch of sea salt
Method:
Melt the cacao butter in a heat proof bowl over barely simmering water. Remove from heat, stir in the maple syrup and salt, then sift in the cacao powder. Whisk together until smooth.
To create the 'nests' simply crush down a couple of pieces of shredded wheat in a bowl and then pour over the melted chocolate coating it all evenly. Spoon the mix out into cupcake cases and then create a well in the middle of the nest with the back of a spoon and fill with mini eggs.
We've always been partial to a blondie over a brownie in our household, and we loved re-creating and adapting one of Doisy and Dam's recipes and using their dark chocolate buttons and colourful dark chocolate drops. This recipe is very easy and a fun one to make for all the family, just like the nests.
Easter Blondies with Doisy and Dam Dark Drops and Chocolate Buttons:
Ingredients:
115g plant-based butter
150g light Muscovado sugar or another brown sugar of choice
1 large ripe banana, mashed
225g spelt flour
21/2 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp oat milk
1 bag of Doisy and Dam buttons
1/2 a bag of Doisy and Dam's dark chocolate drops
Method:
Pre-heat oven to 160 (fan) and line an 18x32 cm tray with parchment paper. Mix the butter or margarine together until pale and fluffy.
Fold in the banana, flour baking powder, milk and vanilla until it's all combined.
Stir in both types of chocolate reserving approximately half to scatter over the top
Spread out the mixture in the lined tin, ensuring it reaches all the edges, you can use a spatula for this. Scatter over the remaining chocolate and place in the centre of the pre-heated oven.
Bake for 18-20 minutes. You want it to still be nice and gooey on the inside. Leave it to cool in the tine before cutting into bars.
A quick note on chocolate: we always recommend looking for fair trade companies who are genuinely trying to create a fairer system and ensure farmers are paid a proper wage whilst also maintaining the highest quality- Doisy and Dam are a recent discovery and we think they are great!
Have a very Happy Easter everyone!
El, Sham and Cosmo x
