No Bake Bird’s Nest Cookies

These No Bake Bird’s Nest Cookies are made with melted chocolate and toasted almonds and coconut. They come out incredibly flavorful and are quick easy to make.

This is such a fun Easter treat to make with your kids – they’ll love decorating them with mini eggs!

No bake Easter cookies

• These are great to make WITH kids, not just for them. I toasted the almonds and coconut, melted the chocolate and mixed the two. The kids broke up the chocolate, measured the coconut and almonds and shaped/decorated the cookies all by themselves.
• It’s a quick project. They’re incredibly easy to make and firm up in the freezer in barely 15 minutes.
• They’re highly adaptable to your taste. You can pick and choose what kind of chocolate you want to use (semi-sweet, dark, milk… or my favorite here: white! – they all work) and what kind of eggs you want to add.

Ingredients you’ll need

Here is a visual overview of the ingredients in the recipe. Scroll down to the printable recipe card at the bottom of this post for quantities!

Ingredient notes

• Almonds/coconut: Feel free to use quick oats in place of either the almonds or coconuts, or in place of both. I still recommend toasting the oats lightly before adding the melted chocolate, the flavor is so much better!
• Mini eggs: I used some generic store brand “micro eggs” (the mini ones) and then some generic store brand robin’s eggs. I thought the size difference would look cute, and it totally did 😉 Feel free to use any combination of mini eggs you like.
• Chocolate: Use whatever kind of melting chocolate you like best. I absolutely love these with white chocolate – it goes perfectly with the toasted nuts. My 6 year old likes milk chocolate best, and the “sophisticated” adults usually go for the dark chocolate. I’m definitely not sophisticated when it comes to Easter candy, so I usually do half a batch with white chocolate and half a batch with either milk or semi-sweet chocolate.
• Final note: Make sure to use chocolate for melting, not chips that are made to keep their shape during baking. And, you can definitely melt a chocolate bunny if you’ve got one too many  😉

How to make no bake bird’s nest cookies

This is a walk-through of the recipe with step photos. Skip to the printable recipe card at the bottom for exact times and temperatures.

Here I’ll share the steps broken up into what my kids do for these, and what I do. Also, step by step photos if you’re making these with visual little learners!

1. Kid: Break up the chocolate and measure out the coconut and almonds.

2. Mom: Toast the almonds, then add the coconut and toast for one more minute.

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3. Mom: Melt the chocolate and mix with the toasted nuts.

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4. Kid: Scoop out heaps of chocolate/nut mix and decorate with mini eggs.

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5. Mom: Freeze the cookies for 10-15 minutes, until they are very firm and easy to remove from the baking parchment.

6. Kid: Get super excited about eating the one mom is allowing you to have.

7. Mom: eat five once the kids are in bed…

I mean, the last two steps are fictional. Or not entirely 😉

Recipe tips

• Be sure to watch the nuts closely as you’re toasting them (stir almost constantly!), and only use medium to medium-high heat. It’s easy to get distracted if you’re making the cookies with kids, and especially the coconut burns easily. If you have very young kids or if yours get overly excited when you cook together (mine do for sure!), try toasting the nuts before you call them to help.
• Melt the chocolate either in bursts in the microwave in a microwave-safe bowl. Stir often in between bursts. OR use a double boiler, or a heat-proof bowl set over a pan with an inch of simmering water in it. With white chocolate it’s especially important to not overdo the heat, it splits easily.
• Make sure the mix for the cookies is thick and holds its shape when spooned and shaped on the lined pan. If your little helpers measured incorrectly and the cookie mixture is too runny, add more coconut or almonds by the tablespoon until it’s thick.
• Conversely, if you end up with too many nuts in your mix, the cookies will not hold together. You can tell this is the case if you have a very hard time getting the mix to come together. In this case, you really have no option but to melt more chocolate to gradually stir into the mix.
• Don’t forget to line your pan, the frozen cookies peel off easily from the parchment paper, but can be a pain to remove from an unlined pan.
• The mini eggs need to be stuck on immediately, as long as the chocolate is still liquid and acts as a food glue. If you wait for too long, the eggs will not stick.
• Store your Bird’s Nest Cookies in the fridge or freezer at all times, because they melt easily or at least soften. They keep in the fridge for 4-5 days, or in the freezer for a month.

Watch the recipe video

This video is proof that a) these no bake easter treats are foolproof to make with kids and b) you cannot trust an 18 month old around chocolate 😉

PS If you try this recipe, please leave a review in the comment section and add a star rating in the recipe card – I appreciate your feedback! Follow along on Pinterest, Facebook or Instagram.

Recipe first published on 03/15/2018. Updated with new photos, text and slight improvements to the recipe on 04/03/2021.

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