These crunchy chocolate cornflake cakes are levelled up with some serious crunch factor from crispy quinoa and ONLY take 15 minutes to prepare. Hassle free chocolate Easter nests for the whole family.
Easter is a special time for a lot of people, made even more special with great food! These chocolate cornflake cakes or chocolate easter nests are insanely easy to make and are super cute too! We're all about mixing it up and as there are a million ways to make standard chocolate cornflake cakes we've amped them up with some serious crunch! If you are after another Easter favorite, try our Chocolate Hot Cross Buns.
These are perfect for those who want something very quick and very easy to make rather than baking, but if you feel like baking up a storm definitely try our Chocolate Carrot Cake which has got the most insanely delicious frosting! As does our Tiramisu Cake YUM! These Chocolate Covered Rice Krispie Treats are incredible too!
We know you'll absolutely love these chocolate Easter nests with cornflakes so leave a comment and rating below! We love hearing from you! Follow the links below to get to where you need to.
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⭐ Why you'll love this recipe
If you weren't already convinced on why you'll love this chocolate easter nest recipe, here are a few more reasons:
Kid friendly - these little chocolate Easter nests are so easy to make the kids can definitely get involved, just be prepared that it could get a bit messy, but they'll love that!
Quick - when you're pinched for time and you're being pulled in every direction and feel the need to make something, these no bake chocolate cornflake cakes hit the mark.
Gluten free - these are naturally gluten free as long as you ensure your cornflakes are certified gluten free.
Super crunchy - we level up with some extra crunch in these with crispy quinoa, flaked almonds and sesame seeds in addition to the cornflakes. Absolutely delicious!
Versatile - these chocolate Easter nests are so versatile you can mix them up even more, check out the customisations below!
Potluck/school bake sale - these will go down a storm at any potluck or school bake sale, the kids will love them and they'll love selling them to their friends!
📋 Ingredients
These chocolate cornflake cakes are made with very accessible ingredients, you'll need the following:
Crunchy bits - you'll absolutely need cornflakes for these treats, you can also use quinoa, flaked almonds and sesame seeds to take the crunch in these chocolate Easter nests to another level. Trust us, it works! We toast the quinoa to make these nests extra crunchy!
Chocolate - we use a semi sweet dark chocolate, about 50% cocoa solids, however you can use a mix of milk and dark if you prefer.
Sticky bits - to make these a bit more sticky and balance out the sweetness you'll need golden syrup and butter. You can substitute honey or corn syrup for the golden syrup if you wish.
📖 Customizations
We all love to switch it up or sometimes find we're missing an ingredient so here are some customizations and substitutions for these chocolate cornflake cakes if needed:
Vegan - if you wish to make these chocolate easter nests vegan, use dairy free chocolate and dairy free butter.
The OG chocolate cornflake cake - don't fancy the levelled up crunch? Simply stick to cornflakes and replace the volume of the seeds and nuts with additional cornflakes instead.
Shredded wheat - lots of chocolate Easter nests are made with shredded wheat, we've tried them all. You really can just switch out the cereal for whatever cereal you prefer. We've even done crispy spelt flakes if you can get hold of them. Rice Krispies work well too!
White chocolate nests - you can go the opposite way if you like with these, use white chocolate instead of dark or make a mix of the two for your chocolate Easter cakes to celebrate Easter with your families.
🔪 How to make chocolate cornflake cakes
Follow this step by step guide on how to make these chocolate cornflake cakes and we promise you'll make snacking on them in no time!
- First of all rinse your quinoa in a sieve under the tap and drain. Place all the quinoa in a skillet and dry fry for 5-10 minutes until it dries, toasts golden and starts to pop. Set aside.
- Mix all the cornflakes, crispy quinoa, almond flakes, sesame seeds and salt together in a mixing bowl.
- Place the chocolate, butter and golden syrup together in a heat proof bowl.
- Melt the bowl of chocolate ingredients in the microwave at full power in 20 second bursts stirring after each 20 seconds.
- After 1 minute and 20 seconds you will be stirring together a completely smooth and uniform chocolate mixture.
- Pour this chocolate mixture over the cornflake mixture.
- Gently stir together the chocolate mixture and dry ingredients until completely coated in chocolate.
- Using a medium cookie scoop or a tablespoon measure, scoop 2 tablespoons of chocolate cornflake cake mixture into cupcake cases and press down with the back of a teaspoon. Top with mini chocolate eggs or marshmallows. Set in the fridge.
👩🍳 Expert tips
Follow these expert tips to ensure perfection every time you create these chocolate cornflake cakes.
Tip 1: Melt your chocolate, butter and golden syrup in the microwave at full power in 20 second bursts. Stir after each 20 seconds and you'll have a completely smooth mixture in around 1 minute 20 seconds.
Tip 2: It's important to melt the chocolate in bursts of 20 seconds in the microwave to avoid burning or spitting or worse - the mixture splitting into a horrible mess.
Tip 3: Use a medium cookie scoop to portion out the chocolate Easter nest mixture, it's so much quicker than measuring out two individual tablespoons' worth.
Tips 4: Melt your chocolate mixture in a large enough bowl and you can simply throw all the dry ingredients on top and stir - voilà! Less washing up and it's even quicker.
Tip 5: Go big or go home. This recipe makes 24 small chocolate cornflake cakes. If you want to, make them bigger use muffin cases and do 2 cookie scoops or 4 tablespoons for a mega chocolate Easter nest!
💭 Recipe FAQs
You'll want to store your chocolate cornflake cakes in an air tight container in the fridge for up to 3 days. After this they will still be edible but you'll find the structural integrity of the cornflakes starts to weaken and become softer.
No, I've made these with just chocolate and they work just fine. You'll find that you may need a little bit more chocolate to ensure everything is coated though. However, these ingredients do soften the chocolate mixture so the chocolate doesn't set rock hard in the fridge and they melt in your mouth as you eat them.
We like to use dark chocolate as we add in additional sweetness. But these cornflake cakes will be great with milk chocolate and even white chocolate.
🥧 Related recipes
We know you'll love these chocolate cornflake cakes. You need to check out our other Easter Recipes, here's some suggestions to get you started:
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📖 Recipe
Chocolate Cornflake Cakes
Equipment
- Fairy Cake Cases or Muffin Cases
Ingredients
- ½ cup quinoa, 100g, rinsed and drained
- ½ cup flaked almonds, 40g
- ¼ cup sesame seeds, 30g
- 3 cups cornflakes, 110g
- ¼ cup butter, 50g
- 2 ½ tablespoons golden syrup, 50g, honey or corn syrup
- ⅛ teaspoon fine sea salt
- 7 ounces dark chocolate, 200g
- 4 ounces miniature chocolate eggs, 100g
Instructions
- Place the rinsed and drained quinoa into a frying pan over medium heat. Heat until the water has evaporated and the grains begin to pop, stirring frequently. The quinoa is ready when it has turned golden and smells nutty and fragrant, this should take around 5 minutes. Remove to a large bowl to cool.½ cup quinoa
- Add the flaked almonds, sesame seeds, cornflakes and a pinch of salt to the toasted and cooled quinoa.½ cup flaked almonds, ¼ cup sesame seeds, 3 cups cornflakes, ⅛ teaspoon fine sea salt
- Place the chocolate, butter and golden syrup into a small heatproof bowl. Set the bowl on a pan of barely simmering water, ensuring the water doesn't touch the bowl. Stir occasionally until melted. Alternatively melt in the microwave - see notes.¼ cup butter, 7 ounces dark chocolate, 2 ½ tablespoons golden syrup
- Pour the chocolate mixture over the dry ingredients and mix well until fully incorporated. Press the mixture into the holes of a greased muffin tin or a baking sheet lined with paper cases. Top each nest with a few chocolate eggs and leave in a cool place or fridge to set - they should be ready in around 20 minutes.4 ounces miniature chocolate eggs
Notes
- Nutrition label is for one nest out of a total of 24, excluding the chocolate eggs.
- We recommend melting the chocolate, golden syrup and butter in a heat proof bowl in the microwave, full power in 20 second bursts stirring after each burst, it'll be smooth and combined in about 1 minute 2o seconds.
- Feel free to switch out the quinoa, sesame, and flaked almonds for the same volume of cornflakes to make the OG chocolate cornflake cakes.
- If you wish, make these in muffin cases and make huge ones.
- If you wish this recipe to be vegan, just switch out the chocolate and butter for dairy free versions.
Susan says
The children and grown ups quickly made short work of these... they loved them.
GEH says
Who needs Easter more than once a year.. 😉
Jessie | Kitschen Cat says
These are super cute!! Easter totally snuck up on me this year, so I'm scrambling to figure out what treats I need to make. Adding these to my list 🙂
Sasha says
Thanks Jessie! Hope you love them 🙂
Vivian | stayaliveandcooking says
Congratulations on the baby nephew!
These look amazing and tasty, love how you used quinoa in the recipe... Great share!
Sasha says
Thanks Vivian! The quinoa is super yummy 🙂