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Healthier No-Bake Bird’s Nest Cookies

Name: Healthier No-Bake Bird's Nest Cookies
Prep time: 30 min
Ingredients: 1 cup semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chips; 1 cup honey; 1/2 cup coconut oil; 1 cup natural almond or peanut butter (whatever your flavor preference); 2.5 cup rolled oats; 1 cup crushed kashi cereal (crush with your hands so you have strands of wheat); 1 tsp vanilla; 50-60 each Little Secrets candies (or other egg candies to provide 2-3 per cookie)

Let me just say that I can’t believe I am already publishing Easter content. Weren’t we celebrating New Year’s day yesterday? Where has the time gone! I feel like we sprung ahead an hour this weekend, but overall, skipped a month or so as well. Next week I will be sharing my spring home tours here, and then the week after probably preparing for Christmas. Maybe I am being dramatic. Let’s get back to the topic at hand here today… Easter, specifically Easter desserts. I am joining several other bloggers today to share some delicious Easter treats with you, and you can find all of their links at the bottom of my post today. As for my recipe, I am always on the lookout for ways to take a delicious classic and make it a wee bit better for you. While I do believe in treating yourself on occasion, I try to create healthier dessert options around here because my kids love dessert and I want to give them something sweet with added bonuses, like protein and healthy grains. Bird Nest cookies are such an adorable Easter classic in my mind, and I’ve created a recipe for you that uses healthy grains, cereal, almond butter, and I’ve also removed any artificial color that typically comes in the candy eggs as well as coconut because my family detests coconut. (I happen to LOVE it, but as I mentioned, I was creating these with my kids in mind.) I made these this past weekend, and my kids and husband all loved them! Today I am excited to share the recipe for these healthier no-bake bird’s nest cookies with you. (I am an Amazon associate and earn a small income on qualifying purchases made through my links.)

In the past, I’ve made no-bake desserts with cleaner ingredients, and I’ve also made bird’s nest cookies, so I knew what I was getting into with these. These cookies are a delight to make because they are super simple, there’s no baking involved so no guessing on if they’re ready to come out of the oven, they’re adorable and fit a spring theme (though with black eggs would be really cool for Halloween!), and they are delicious!

Let me take you step by step with these tasty treats.

Materials Needed

These are just the out of the ordinary items you will need and want to have accessible. Of course you will also need measuring cups, heat resistant spatula (I loooove these), and a teaspoon.

Double boiler, or a metal or glass bowl you can place over a pot on the stove top
Waxed paper (parchment paper works just fine as well), or a silicone mat (I don’t have one, but hope to get one to cut down on paper use)

As you will see in my photos, I don’t have a double boiler. For some reason I thought purging it when we moved was a good idea. It wasn’t. If you have a double boiler, keep it and hold it dear and never let Marie Kondo tell you otherwise.

Ingredients

Before I begin, I like to gather all of my ingredients on the counter, and even measure some out and set them aside in bowls ready to go. With something like a no-bake cookie where you’re melting over heat, and then removing from heat, speed is your friend. Having all of the ingredients ready to go makes for much more efficiency in the kitchen.

You will need:

Semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chips
Natural almond or peanut butter
Coconut oil
Honey
Oats
Kashi wheat cereal (I used chocolate because it’s what they had at Whole Foods, but plain wheat would be better!)
Little Secrets candies– colored naturally (not pictured above)

How to Create

First, you are going to prepare your double boiler by filling the bottom portion with water and setting on medium high heat. Next, gather your chocolate, coconut oil, and honey.

Melt these three ingredients together over heat. Ignore Princess Leia giving you major side eye. She should be happy with her face in chocolate. (If you’re looking for these spatulas, you can find them here, BTW.)

Stir occasionally, keeping over heat until you have a smooth consistency.

While you’re mixing these ingredients, you can prepare the nut butter and dry goods: oats and cereal. You will want to crush your wheat cereal with your hands so you can wheat strands. Make sure that you wash your hands thoroughly before doing this! These cookies are NO BAKE and germs will not be killed in a heated oven.

Keeping over heat, add in the nut butter you are using and keep stirring until it’s totally blended in. You can see below that the mixture is slightly lighter in color and there’s evidence of my almond butter on the spatula.

Remove from heat and add in your vanilla and dry ingredients. Mix until blended together but don’t over mix! You don’t want to break your cereal. Drop by heaping tablespoonful onto prepared sheet. (I was using a baking sheet with parchment paper)

Allow it to sit for a minute, and then go back with a teaspoon and create a small divot in each cookie.

Once you’ve made a little divot in each, place in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.

Once they’ve set in the refrigerator, remove, and add your candy eggs. A little note about my “eggs” here. I found these little secrets candies at Whole Foods and chose this weird green color because they were mint flavored and our family is a huge chocolate and mint fan! They did not disappoint and might be the most delicious candies I have ever eaten! Chris and I couldn’t stop eating them. They do make other flavors and colors, such as these purple dark chocolate ones that are a little more Easter appropriate I suppose. I was going for pleasing my family.

Once you are done, they are ready to serve!

I added some to a place setting just to give you some visual ideas.

We’ve stored ours in our refrigerator, reusing the parchment paper in between layers to keep them from sticking to one another or making a mess.

They’ve held up well and are absolutely delicious! I am especially thrilled that my kids love them and I’ve been able to sneak in some healthy grains, fats, and proteins…. with a little chocolate. 😉

Below, I’ve got an easy to follow recipe for you.