The happiest of Easters to everyone who celebrates! I’m like a guest showing up late to the party, but hey, I have treats! Maybe you’ll want to pin this for next year or maybe make these darling little Chocolate Pretzel Bird Nests with any leftover Easter candies. I don’t know about you, but I love flavor combo of sweet and salty and love it even more when it’s chocolate with a little saltiness.

Chocolate Pretzel Bird Nests

I love it still more when the recipe is drop-dead simple to make with just a handful of ingredients like these Chocolate Pretzel Bird Nests. They’re just a fun little item to put out on the buffet or to hand out as a favor or pass out to or make with the littles. Expect a mess if you make them with kids! But that’s part of the fun. And so is licking the spoon!

About Chocolate Pretzel Bird Nests:

One of the fun things about Chocolate Pretzel Bird Nests is that you can play around with the flavors. You can very easily make them pure chocolate, either milk, semi-sweet or bitter chocolate and of course, it’s just as easy to change them up to white chocolate. And I’d urge you to consider a chocolate peanut butter combo (they’ll be a bit softer and a little messy but oh, so good) if that’s your thing. Reece’s, I’m not sorry!

Top your nests with any little eggs you’d like; there are so many flavors and types to choose from. I chose little malted milk robin’s eggs but I think I stood in the Easter candy aisle for a good 10 to 15 minutes looking over the options. I want this one, no that one, lol!

There was everything from budget bags to higher end candy, too. Since these nests can be small like I made them or large just choose the appropriate size. I also considered using some Peeps and making larger nests, maybe with a little peep incubating the eggs, but in the end, I thought small little nests would be darling. I think I was right on that! I was really thinking about tucking them into some buttercream frosting on Easter cupcakes, but like every holiday, it always seems my ideas outweigh my ambition. Darn you Spring clean up and yard work and annual maintenance on my 1942 house! Maybe next year – or even next week; better late than never!

Chocolate Pretzel Bird Nests

Making Chocolate Pretzel Bird Nests:

Part of what makes these so easy is that there are only four ingredients: the chocolate, a little butter or coconut oil just to make them smooth, shiny and handle easily, the pretzels and the eggs. Oh, and did I mention no-bake? And that all you have to do is microwave the chocolate and butter or coconut oil (add peanut butter if you’re using) and stir it until smooth, then mix in the pretzels and form the little nests. The only hard part is waiting for them to cool and harden and I’d suggest the fridge for that, for at least an hour.

I chose to make tiny little birds nests using a mini-muffin tin, but you can make them larger in an appropriate mold, like a full-size muffin tin or free form them if you’d like on parchment, wax paper or foil. And while I’m going on about the making of these, rustic is the way to go here; these aren’t perfect nests, just an approximation of one.

It’s good to know, too, that there isn’t any right or wrong and you can certainly riff on this recipe. I like just about equal amounts of chocolate and pretzels, by weight – just look at your bag of pretzels to see how many ounces it is and guestimate 12 ounces, which is the size of a bag of chocolate chips. Then add in two tablespoons of the butter or coconut oil. If you’re going with peanut butter, use about three tablespoons, but cut the butter or coconut oil back to only one tablespoon. If you want to, you can use a lot more chocolate to get something more solid or a little less if you’d like it to look more “stick” like.

I gotta tell you, these are a bit messy to make, but then almost any chocolaty treat is. I just went with the flow and I got a little chocolate smeared over the eggs, didn’t stress about it. Heck, I figure unless you’re a super perfectionist, yours will probably come out the same way!

Saving Money on Chocolate Pretzel Bird Nests:

There’s no better time than before the Easter holiday or the long stretch from pre-Thanksgiving to New Years to stock up on baking items, like chocolate chips. There will always be sporadic sales and lesser sales around other holidays (Valentine’s Day, especially).

Any holiday is a great time to find your snacky type junk foods on sale, like chips, although I seldom see pretzels on sale – maybe because I don’t really eat them that often and don’t watch for them. I’d be in danger if I kept them in my house!

Chocolate Pretzel Bird Nests

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I’ll be sharing Chocolate Pretzel Bird Nests at Fiesta Friday 272 hosted this week by Antonia @ Zoale.com and Angie @ Fiesta Friday.