When Chocolate Nests Go Wrong...

Father Christmas usually gets a mince pie for his snack at our house, but this year I figured it would be a nice activity with the littlies to make him something together.

While I was out shopping the other day, I came across some cheap Mini Eggs.  These aren't normally available other than at Easter, so I bought myself a bag to eat.  Then I decided to buy another two bags (£1 each!), to make chocolate nests with my siblings.  The perfect, easy thing to make for Father Christmas!  They have now been renamed "Santa Cakes" by my 3 year old sister.

Christmas Eve was pretty hectic, so we made them on Christmas Eve-Eve.

For those of you who don't know, this is how you make chocolate nests -

100g of coco pops (or rice crispies, but I prefer it with coco pops - even more chocolatey!)
200g of chocolate
Paper cases
Mini Eggs to decorate (optional!)

- Break the chocolate into pieces and melt (we used the microwave, on low in short bursts, but the 'proper' method is to boil water in a pan, and put the chocolate in a bowl over the boiling water)
- Mix the coco pops and melted chocolate together
- Put spoonfuls of mix into the paper cases
- Decorate the cakes with Mini Eggs

This made 20 chocolate nests, but the kids were pretty generous with the mix.

Now.  I'm not the most qualified baker in the world.  At one point I had an entire blog dedicated to my adventures (and disasters) in the kitchen.  For example, my cookies are tasty, but usually turn into one big, monster cookie.

I've had the same problem with fairy cakes too.  The small cakes are Jam Buns, which I'll be making in the next couple of days :)

But really, how far wrong can you go with Chocolate Nests...?

That, my friends, is what we call a "Dr Pepper" question.  If you've not seen the "Dr Pepper, what's the worst that can happen?" adverts - go YouTube them!

The problem with the Chocolate Nests was that I was working with two young children.  By the time they had mixed the chocolate and coco pops together, then scooped it into the bun cases...the chocolate had set.  Here's a photo of them, you can sort of see how crumbly they are -

They didn't notice, of course.  They merrily decorated the cakes and I managed to delay the realisation by saying they couldn't have any until the next day (it was bed-time).

Once they were out of ear-shot, I explained the problem to my Dad.  His view was that we'd probably had it, better luck next time.  I tried Facebook, same opinion.  Disaster!  Luckily, Dad mulled it over for a while, and came up with a solution.  Re-melt the chocolate with a hairdryer.  Genius!

We'd heard about chocolatiers using this method, surely it would work here too?  I borrowed my other sister's hairdryer, set it on a high-ish heat but a low-ish 'blow', and got to work.

Thankfully it worked.  I had to be very careful, and hold the hairdryer quite high up though, since it had a tendency to blow the chocolate nests out of the bun tin!  I did remove the Mini Eggs first, by the way.

For good measure I melted some more chocolate (I had a 100g bar left) and drizzled that on top, then replaced all the Mini Eggs.

The next day my brother was eating one, and exclaimed - "We're GOOD at baking, aren't we?  These are so tasty!  At look at the bottom, it looks like a REAL chocolate nests.  We're like professionals!"

I didn't have the heart to tell him :)

Oh, and Father Christmas loved his Santa Cake!

Princess Lollipop does Church

Princess Lollipop (my 3 year old sister) is very excited for Christmas.  She absolutely "gets it" this year, and is "bouncing off the wall" excited.  The thought of Father Christmas withholding presents based on behaviour has terrified her into submission for a month.  Mostly.  On occasion we've had to remind her to use her "good listening skills", and then she'd cry hysterically, convinced she wasn't going to get any presents.

We also have an "Elf on the Shelf" this year, which initially freaked her out BIG TIME.  We eventually calmed her down, convincing her Figgle (the Elf) was actually a fairy, who was friends with Peter Pan and Tinkerbell.  She was also confined to the downstairs.  Since then Figgle has been a welcome addition to our family.  Lolli has loved seeing what new "viewing place" Figgle has found for herself.  Figgle hasn't played any tricks this year - we figured that would be a step too far.

Today is, of course, Christmas Eve.  Lolli's excitement has hit an all time high, closely followed by Little Prince, my 9 year old brother.  Ooooh boy!

Now, we're not an especially religious family.  We do attend the Christmas Eve Crib Service every year, however.  This year we took an over-excited Princess Lollipop with us.  I had the pleasure of sitting with her.  Ooooh BOY!

We were given a hymn sheet to share.  She took on the task of holding it.  Mostly clutched to her chest so I couldn't see it.  She would occasionally hold it out, waving it in my direction...

Princess Lollipop was quite perplexed by many of the things happening, and asked a lot of questions.  In a stage whisper.  Some examples of our "quiet" conversations -
- "LOOK!  It's Father Christmas!" (That's not Father Christmas, that's Jesus...)
- "Who are Mary and Joseph?" (They were in your school Christmas play, remember?) "Oh yes! They're Jack and Molly."
- "I WANT TO HAVE FIRE!" (Waiting to carry our candles to the nativity scene)
- "Are you going to see the beautiful things I did?" (She carried figurines to the nativity)
- "That's Baby Jesus up there, which one's Baby Jesus?" (The big one, in the middle) "No, it's not!" (He grew up into a man) "No, he can't." (People grow up!) "But I'm bigger than babies" (No, no, Jesus was born 2000 years ago) *laughs hysterically for 5 minutes*

I was regaling my Dad with tales of Lolli at church, so he called her over to ask about it.  This is her version -
- "I saw Jesus on the flat sword" (the cross) "It was Man Jesus, not Baby Jesus"

Have a very merry Christmas everyone!