Today I decided to make these cute and delicious Chocolate Macaroon Bird Nest Cookies to celebrate spring and Easter this week :) To make these cookies it was fairly simple and only involved a few modifications. For instance, I ended up using semi-sweet chocolate chips instead of dark chocolate, as I didn't have any on hand at home and it worked out really well. However, if you prefer a richer, darker flavour then I would recommend sticking with the dark chocolate.
Also, if you do end up using semi-sweet chocolate chips, I would recommend using unsweetened shredded coconut, otherwise you might find it a bit sweet. I also ended up using about 2-3/4 cup of shredded coconut, as I found the mixture a bit wet, however, temper this based on how your mixture turns out.
For the royal icing, I used Rosanna Pansino's recipe from her cookbook, 'Baking All Year Round', but you could also use any typical recipe from online, as the ingredients are fairly standard (icing sugar, egg whites/meringue powder, and vanilla). However, I would recommend using one of the recipes that uses egg whites, as I find they work out better for decorating.
As for food colouring, I used gel food colouring and added orange and black food colouring with toothpicks. In terms of baking time, it took about 23 minutes and made 11 cookies. Also, I would highly recommend using disposable medical grade/food gloves to form the cookies, as they will stick to your hand too much if you try to form them without it.
For assembling the cookies, I piped about 1/4 cup of melted chocolate to keep the chocolate eggs in place. Voila! You have your cute and delicious bird nest cookies! I hope you enjoyed this review and have a great Easter weekend! Happy baking :)
Here is the link to the recipe I used: rosannapansino.com
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