Malted Milk Ball cookies

Because I couldn't get enough of Dorie Greenspan, I chose to make another of her recipes... this time it was Chocolate Malted Whopper Drops. There was a potluck at work and who can resist a childhood favorite like Whoppers?!

I lived on the dangerous side again, not testing the recipe before presenting it, but I wasn't too worried even if they turned out badly. I work with a bunch of fast food-eating, non-foodie guys so they're generally happy with anything I make.

It's a good thing there was no need to impress because I didn't feel that this recipe lived up to my expectations. It's quite possible that there was some operator error involved as I did tweak a few things, but I'm not sure that I would have liked the original version either.

The recipe called for 6 oz of semi-sweet chocolate chips, which was the same amount of Whoppers added to the mix. I didn't want the chocolate to overpower the malt flavor so I used less. What I should have done is increased the amount of Whoppers at the same time. Doh. I also couldn't find malted milk powder so I ended up Ovaltine. Other bloggers did this as well, but I felt it didn't give the dough a good malt flavor. Maybe because it was chocolate-flavored Ovaltine? These cookies had a cakey texture, which am I not overly fond of. The dough tasted like chocolate cake, with bits of caramelized sweetened candy dispersed randomly.

The work crowd liked them well enough, but they couldn't quite figure out the "mystery" ingredient. Someone guessed Honeycomb cereal. Really?! Um yeaaaah... more malt flavor next time!

If I make them again, this is what I'd do differently:

• I'd use more Whoppers and less chocolate... probably close to a ratio of 4:1 (Whoppers : chocolate chips).


• I'd try harder to find Carnation malted milk powder.


• I'd bake them for slightly less. Mine were done around 11 minutes, but maybe next time I'd try 9-10 for a chewier texture.