Chocolate No Bake Nests

Kale and I make cookies usually once a week, sometimes twice a week. This kid loves to bake. He has an apron, a tea cozie hat, pint sized measuring spoons, and oven mitts and he is fully prepared to use them all. I’ve given up on caring about him being over enthusiastic about baking and flinging batter all over the place; I remember baking with both my mom and my nana and those memories are some of my finest ones. If Kale wants to bake, that works for me. I choose recipes that are forgiving and not finicky – and like to find ones he can be hands on about.

He knows the difference between the baking soda and the baking powder containers, and can identify the bag of sugar, vanilla, cocoa, chocolate chips, and other assorted baking goods. When I prepare to make something, we generally go into the cupboard, find all the things the recipe calls for, and pull them out. This also helps to make sure you aren’t, you know, short a cup of something part way through. Not that I’d ever do that or anything. I tell Kale what everything is called and the little sponge absorbs it so much. I love it. He has even started figuring out which measuring cup is the 1 cup and which one is the 1/4 cup. Awesome with a side of sweet.

Yesterday, Kale and I made something a bit different – Chocolate No Bake Nests. They are dead simple, require chilling instead of baking, and truth be told, look kind of like mini beaver lodges rather than nests. I have seen them made with hollowed out centres with jelly beans, mini eggs or pieces of dried fruit in the middle (hence, “nests”) but in our house, they are blobs of choco-oat-coconut yumminess.

This recipe comes to me by way of a former co-worker’s sister. She used to bring in giant tubs of these things and hand them out to us. I loved her. The recipe is pretty forgiving, and you could probably play around with substitutions for special diets: soy for milk, honey or agave for sugar, quinoa for oats, etc, or you could up the coconut and lower the oats. Your call.

As with all my recipes, “T” refers to tablespoon, “t” refers to teaspoon. Think: big T, little t.

Ingredients:

• 3 c quick oats
• 1 c shredded unsweetened coconut
• 6 T cocoa
• 1/2 c butter
• 1/2 c milk
• 2 c white sugar
• 1/2 t vanilla

Method:

1. Mix oats, coconut, and cocoa in a large mixing bowl.
2. On stove on medium heat, melt butter, sugar, and milk until nearly boiling.
3. Pour over dry mixture and then add vanilla.
4. Stir well until blended, and then drop by rounded teaspoonful onto wax paper and chill in the fridge.
5. Store in an airtight container, preferably in the fridge.

Yield:

About 4 dozen small cookies.