Chocolate Chip Baking Week 8: Malted Milk Powder Chocolate Chip Cookies

I know it says published 19th December but here in Aus it is the 20th – how time travel style, Doctor Who cool is that!

Sorry, but being the child I am, I sometimes have to let all my pent up festive excitement out (as seen through the way I devour fruit mince pies, tear open presents in a frenzy, adore the secrets of Kris Kringle and love watching Christmas themed reruns of Sabrina the Teenage Witch…)

Back to the post now…

What is malted milk powder? On stumbling on this chocolate chip cookie recipe, that was the first thing that hit me. See, Australia is kind of a baking goods hole a.k.a you can find no toffee chips, or Reese’s special hot fudge topping etc. unless you go to specialty shops in the city or further beyond. No wonder I had never heard of this thing before!

According to the most reliable source in the world, Wikipedia, malted milk powder is: A “food product made from a mixture of malted barley, wheat flour, and whole milk, which is evaporated until it forms a powder.”
Scrolling down further, it then dawned on me that Aus. was not as backwards as it seemed and I indeed had heard of this powder – first of all in the form of OVALTINE! It really brought back memories of year 1 and year 2 in which these packets were all the rage with their contents of small, oval shaped candies!

Never had I even thought that Ovaltine was actually a drink! For those who are unlucky enough to still have no idea of what I am talking about, Ovaltine is basically chocolate flavoured malted milk powder 🙂
And of course, after that, I remembered Arnott’s delicious malted milk powder biscuits (The Malt ‘o’ Milk) – perfect for dipping in sweet, sugary tea when your throat is sore!

Anyway, this meant I had to try this recipe. The fact that it was from the much investigated blog of The Pioneer Woman also helped 😛

What can I say about these cookies? They were probably the equivalent softness to the brown butter cookies I made. The only thing which gave those cookies the slightest edge over these was because these seemed a bit over-sweet. Cut back the white sugar to 1 1/2 tbs and you have got a winner!!!

These cookies are quite thin, but be warned before, have NO element of crispy cookies like these. They melt in your mouth, and basically just collapse in your hand out of their delicacy (or was that just because I was a little too impatient :P). The inside is bang on fantastic for soft lovers. Not chewy, the inside is like freshly baked cake, crumbed and literally melting into your mouth. There is no other way to explain it, I swear. This is probably because of the highly sticky and soft dough (I ate a lot of that dough…)

I also really enjoyed the fact that it used milk chocolate chips instead of dark (not that I ever follow that anyway!). The sweetness of these cookies would have been overly contrasting with the harsh bitterness of dark or even semi-sweet chips for sure! And this is coming from a lover of dark chocolate!

I must point out though that I used Ovaltine powder in place of the usual Horlicks or original flavoured malted milk powder. This was only because the tins of this powder are sold in pretty big quantities and I wanted to buy something I could actually finish (the rest through drinking of course :)). I may never know how the original tastes in these cookies but I am telling you this, the delightful taste gotten from using this chocolate-y powder is fantastic, subtle and leaves an awesome aftertaste! It is your choice, but I also increased the quantity to 3/4 cup of malted milk powder 😀

Not a winner but dam delicious and could be definitely is malted milk is your thing and you reduce the sugar!

We are almost at an end to this week – later today I promise a certain chocolate chip cookie milkshake… with an overdose of chocolate chip cookies…

Cheers to you all!