These crispy crackolates are really just no-bake cornflake cakes and they make ideal kid’s fare. They’re super simple to make and you can easily form them into Easter nests, if desired. The recipe is also really easy to remember as there are only five ingredients and they all weigh equal amounts.
When Dom set this month’s Random Recipe Challenge to cook something out of the first cookbook we ever owned, I was quite excited. I remembered the book well, but haven’t looked at it for more years than I care to remember. It resides at my Mother’s along with many of my old books, so I couldn’t get my hands on it immediately.
My Learn to Cook Book
But finally, I got it. My learn to cook book: a children’s book for the kitchen by Ursula Sedgwick. On the inside cover is an inscription which reminded me it was given to me for Christmas when I was eight years old by my Great Aunt Doris and Uncle Alf. Both are still alive and in their 90s.
Leafing through it, I was amazed at what a good book it was. Even more astonishing, I’d made pretty much everything in it, at least once. Recently, I’d had problems making my own marzipan in this recipe for chocolate matcha Battenberg. So it really made me laugh to see a recipe for marzipan dates in the book, which included making your own marzipan. And, I remember doing it.
At the back of the book, there’s a really useful table showing, for example, how many tablespoons of various ingredients weigh an ounce. It includes the fact that 3 halfpennies weigh half an ounce. Half pennies? I’m not sure I can still remember them. Can you?
Crispy Crackolates Become Easter Nests
My slight concern that there might not be any chocolate recipes in the book was immediately banished. It did seem rather unlikely that a children’s cookbook, even from the 70s, would fail to include any chocolate recipes. It contained three: chocolate mousse, crispy crackolates and chocolate drops. Crispy crackolates it was. They would be just perfect for Easter as little nests that I could drop some eggs into. Easter eggs for CT sorted – hee hee!
The nests worked really well. They were very chocolatey but not too sweet and very slightly sticky. The stickiness was advantageous as it helped the eggs to stay put in the nest. And who doesn’t like sticky when you’re a kid? They formed part of my Easter egg platters this year along with truffle Easter eggs and Amaretto Easter cupcakes.
Thank you Dom for reuniting me with such an old friend and for allowing me to make such a quick and easy recipe.
Other Cornflake Recipes You Might Like
- Chocolate cornflake crunch bars
- Cinnamon coconut chocolate crunch
- Crunchy cornflake biscuits with white chocolate
- Easter nest cupcakes
Show Me Your Cornflake Cakes
Thanks for visiting Tin and Thyme. If you make these Easter Nests, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. And do please rate the recipe. Have you any top tips? Do share photos on social media too and use the hashtag #tinandthyme, so I can spot them.
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If you’d like more Easter recipes, follow the link and you’ll find I have quite a lot of them. All delicious, of course.
Choclette x
Easter Nests. PIN IT.
Easter Nests – The Recipe
Easter Nests
Ingredients
- 1 oz unsalted butter (30g)
- 1 oz golden granulated sugar (30g)
- 1 tbsp golden syrup
- 1 oz cocoa powder (30g)
- 1 oz cornflakes (30g)
Instructions
- Melt the butter in a large pan along with the sugar and golden syrup.1 oz unsalted butter, 1 oz golden granulated sugar, 1 tbsp golden syrup
- Mix in the cocoa, then stir in the cornflakes until all are covered with the chocolate mixture.1 oz cocoa powder, 1 oz cornflakes
- Spoon onto a plate or tin lined with greasproof paper to make 5 piles. Form them into some semblance of a nest. Leave in a cool place to set, then place a few sugar coated chocolate eggs in the middle.
Brogan says
I make these but I modified it into my own recipe last year! Shredded Wheat with chocolate and mini marshmellows! They look so realistic with the Shredded Wheat! It’s brilliant! ALMOST EASTER! xxx
Phyllis Ellett says
Thanks for this simple recipe, added this for Me and Grace’s (who is 4) ‘Easter’ bake day next week
Micky Ricketts says
Looking forward to trying this receipe, looks yum!
Louise Hutchings says
Yummy sometimes the simplest things are the best. Bringing back great childhood memories x
Tracy K Nixon says
This is a great recipe! I usually just melt cooking chocolate and add cornflakes but they seem to fall apart easily! Maybe adding the golden syrup will help! Thank you!
Choclette says
Thanks Tracy. Golden syrup will definitely help along with a bit of butter.
Anonymous says
hi I used to have Ursula sedgwick’s learn to cook book as a child and have been trying to remember if there is an amazingly goood recipe for ginger nuts/cookies/biscuits??? or if im thinking of another book. If so is there any chance you could put the recipe up here??? thanks
Choclette says
I’m pretty sure there is a recipe in it for gingerbread men at least. The book resides with my mother, so I will try and remember to look it up next time I’ve over. My memory is pretty scratch though.
Susan McDonald says
I realise that this is almost a year after the last post in this thread – but I had to comment!
I was craving some fruit cake the other day – most unusual, as I’m not known for my sweet tooth! I remembered the recipe for a fruit cake in My Fun to Cook Book, which was definitely the catalyst for my love of cooking and baking! It never failed, and was a family favourite. One time, my mother’s friend who kept ducks gave me a duck egg, and I used it in this recipe to make the yellowest and best-tasting version yet! Although it wasn’t rich, a small slice went a long way, and if it got a bit dry, it was lovely to have a bit of butter on a slice – often got that in my school lunch-box!
I still have that book – and the very tin I used to use as a kid – so I’m off to make another of those fruit cakes, 21st century style, and will report back! Yum!
Susan says
Hi Susan,
I saw this post when I was searching for this recipe. I had the same book, and the fruit cake recipe was foolproof, and definitely my favourite from the book. Sadly, I can no longer find my book – do you know if that recipe is available anywhere? Thanks!
Fabulicious Food says
How cooooll! This was my first cookbook too and I would never have been able to track it down without your help! Thanks!
Choclette says
Gloria – it was fun making these after so many years.
CityHippy – do see if you can track it down. It might be fun using it with the monkeys.
cityhippyfarmgirl says
What a great challenge. I’m not sure my mum still has my first cookbook but the pictures looked like your first one…. I might have to go hunting!
Gloria says
Choclette and I really love these easter nests! delicious! gloria
Choclette says
Johanna – Thank you. We pretty much lived in the kitchen, so it was hard not to get involved. But yes, I’ve loved cooking for as long as I can remember.
Chele – yes, when you talked about a cat and a dog, I wondered if it was the same one.
Foodiva – Glad you managed to quickly get over the feeling of deprivation 😉
Foodiva says
A number of people here seemed to have gotten this book as a child, I’m starting to think I had a deprived childhood! Fortunately, I became interested in kitchen activities only after marriage so that softened the tragedy… With your crackolates recipe, I can finally manage closure, I think. Your nests with the eggies look superb, by the way!
Chele says
Lovely! I wish I had been able to get my hands on my first cookbook, I think that would have been pretty similar to yours ;0)
Love the Easter Nests.
Johanna GGG says
great post – love hearing about others childhood cookbooks – sounds like you got the bug early – how funny that you made your own marzipan as a child – I learnt that it came from a packet – those nests look great for easter – must remember them next year
Choclette says
Veena – thank you
Maria – thank you, they certainly bring back childhood memories
Cucina di Barbara – thank you for following. Had a lovely Easter thank you. Hoping you did too.
Jill – yes, it was great to have an excuse to play 😉
Now Serving – thank you and thanks for following
Now Serving says
Ooh — what I would do to have one of those edible nests on one of my trees :))
Really sweet presentation!
Jill Colonna says
Love hearing about your first cookbook and rekindling the memories with chocolate and cornflakes 😉 Gorgeous sticky nests!
''Cucina di Barbara'' says
Hello! I am glad you found my blog as now I can follow you back for some new recipes.
Now I am following you!
I hope you had a lovely Easter!
Barbaraxx
Maria♥ says
Those Easter Nests look so cute!
Maria
x
veena krishnakumar says
wow!!!!!!!!!beautiful……..
Choclette says
Dom – thanks for giving me the excuse.
Janice & HopeEternal – glad you both enjoyed the book as much as I did. I’ve never come across anyone else whose had this book before. Funny they were all given by aunts & uncles rather than parents.
hopeeternalcookbook says
Guess what, Choclette (and Janice) … it was my first cookbook too, also a gift from my aunt and uncle when I was at Junior School. Sadly mine was not inscribed, but very thumbed. Such distinctive 60’s style illustrations with the cat and dog on almost every page. I remember making the Croque Monsieur and Knickerbocker Glories. It still resides on my shelf but it is a long time since I opened it. When I was looking for a choc nest recipe last year it never occurred to me to look there.
I guess we are all roughly the same age! Just off to see what Janice made in 2007!
hopeeternal
‘Meanderings through my Cookbook’
Janice says
OMG – I can’t believe that is your first cookbook. I have that book and I was given it by my Great Aunt Kate! I love the illustrations and it has a really unique and delicious smell. I blogged about it in October 2007 HERE
Dom at Belleau Kitchen says
I love this post C it brilliantly sums up this challenge… and I love the fact that you adapted the recipe to the Easter theme, excellent work!
Choclette says
Jac – I didn’t know you were an artist. Leaving home seems to have been the impetus for most of the people I know to start cooking.
Suman – so easy and so very moreish 😉
Kath – you have a bit more of an excuse to make them than me 😉
MCB – yes, am fast coming to that opinion myself.
PDNFTA – I really enjoyed this challenge. It was great to make something so easy that looked quite good and tasted delicious.
Please Do Not Feed The Animals. says
I love that you managed to customise your recipe for Easter. And everyone loves a crispy cornflake cake.
MissCakeBaker says
Cornflake cakes are possibly the best cakes ever! Fact!
Kath says
Ooh lovely. I love a cornflake cake.
Suman Singh says
Wow..beautiful and delicious looking nests…
Jacqueline says
I’ve just dug out my first cookbook for the same challenge. I got mine a lot later, as I wasn’t really interested in cooking until I went to art college and had to cook for myself.
These nests look rather naughty. Mmmmmm 😛