Bird’s Nests With Royal Icing

With St. Patrick’s Day over, now comes the Spring and Easter themed posts.  With the unseasonably warm temperatures we are experiencing here now one would think that we skipped  from Winter directly into Summer.  The birds chirping have woken me for the past few mornings, right along with the warm sunshine.  I’m enjoying it while it lasts.  Today seemed like the perfect day to herald new seasons with some easy but (I think) cute decorating ideas with royal icing.
Won’t be long before kids are running around fields and lawns in their Sunday best, Easter baskets in hand as they hunt down the hidden eggs.  Today I’m going to show you another place to store your eggs.  First off, a few birds nests made with leftover royal icing.  Cute and edible containers to stash some of your favourite Easter treats of the oval shape.

All you will need to make a nest like this is a small canning jar or bowl.  Some Saran Wrap, a little Crisco and royal icing (mine was leftover from cookie decorating), food colouring and a piping bag with a #233 tip, often referred to as the grass tip.

I also used a larger bowl and made a larger nest (fits more eggs right!)

Personally, I prefer the nests made from the small canning jars.  Ready to make some little nests of your own?  Here we go.

First of all, cover your small jar or bowl tightly with Saran Wrap.  Rub a light coating of Crisco all around the plastic wrap.

Now you are going to cover the *bottom* of the nest with royal icing tinted to the shade you want.  I piped the icing using the #233 tip and just smoothed it out with a spatula.  You want your icing fairly thick when working with the #233 so there really was no need to pipe a border and then flood the base.

Next step is to pipe your way around the jar with the #233 tip.  With the exception of the larger nest where I piped in the same direction, I made both long and short piping lines and just went in a random pattern until the jar was covered about 3/4′s of the way down.

Let the icing dry for a full 24 hours.  Then turn the nest over, carefully lifting the jar from the hardened royal icing nest.  Fill with coloured *straw* and your favourite Easter eggs

Next post I will show you how to make another nest, this time with sugar cookie dough and royal icing.

Source:  vanillabeanbaker.com