Malted Milk Chocolate Chip Cookies (Ree Drummond)

It's been a while since I baked cookies. I remember the cookie baking frenzy that went on just before Chinese New Year and I did say that you will be seeing more cookies from me but somehow that didn't quite happen until last weekend.

I was looking at Ree Drummond's recipes on her blog and this cookie caught my eye. Where can I get malted milk I wondered when I suddenly realized that we do have malted milk in the form of Horlicks. And guess what? I have a small packet of Horlicks which I bought because I wanted to bake those cute doggie cookies. My doggie cookies did not materialize and this was the perfect opportunity for me to finally use the Horlicks.

I woke up early on Sunday morning and took out a block of butter to soften it. I studied Ree's recipe and made some adjustments. I am hopeless with cups. I am not confident measuring flour using cups and prefer weights as it is more accurate. Sugar and liquids is not a problem and is actually easier using cups. But for butter, I definitely prefer to weigh it.

As usual, the first thing that I do is to reduce the sugar. Americans eat way too much sugar and if I were to follow the recipe to a tee, I would faint in a diabetic heap. Horlicks is already sweet  and so are the chocolate chips. And the original recipe calls for 300g of sugar to 250g of flour.

I prepared the cookie dough in advance and kept it in the fridge because I had to go to Aeon for a spot of grocery shopping. When I came home, I took the dough out and proceeded to drop the dough on the lined baking tray. I had to figure out the baking time and referred to my previous bakes for guidance. For my first batch, I was slightly mad and baked the cookies for 18 minutes. This was what happened :

My cookies were very brown and had a slightly burnt taste. I prefer crispy cookies rather than chewy, hence my preference for longer baking time. For my next batch, I reduced to 16 minutes but found that they were still too brown and adjusted by another 2 minutes for the next batches. I found that 14 minutes is just nice for a crispy cookie while 12 minutes yielded a softer, chewier texture (I don't like). My cookies did not become flat like Ree's probably because I reduced the sugar quite drastically (mine was 100g compared to Ree's which is 300g).

50 shades...eh, sorry...4 shades of brown. From left 12, 14, 16 and 18 minutes. My ideal cookie is the one baked for 14 or 16 minutes.

Quite honestly, I like the darker cookies with that slighly burnt taste. Weird huh? But of course I had to consider other people's taste buds and stuck to the more acceptable 14 minutes. The malted milk added a very special taste and aroma to the cookies. 

I was enjoying myself experimenting with the baking time and tasting that I forgot that I haven't prepared anything for lunch. But it didn't matter because I was quite full from the cookies. Hee..hee..the freedom and autonomy of being an adult! You eat cookies when you want to and nobody tells you that you are spoiling your lunch. Whoo hoo! But you only have yourself to blame if you get fat :( And you have to pay your own bills :( :( :(

I love these cookies and they are going to be in my Chinese New Year cookies repertoire. And don't forget to check out what Ree does with these cookies. She made ice-cream sandwiches out of them. Very tempting indeed!

Malted Milk Chocolate Chip Cookies

Recipe source : Ree Drummond

(My notes and adaptations in red)

Ingredients
- 1 cup (2 Sticks) Unsalted Butter Softened (I used 250g)
- 3/4 cups Golden Brown Sugar (I used 50g)
- 3/4 cups Sugar (I used 50g)
- 2 whole Eggs
- 2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
- 2 cups All-purpose Flour (I used 240g self-raising flour)
- 1-1/4 teaspoon Baking Soda (I omitted)
- 1-1/4 teaspoon Salt (I used about 1/2 teaspoon)
- 1/2 cup (rounded) Malted Milk Powder (I used 65g)
- 1 bag (12 Ounce) Milk Chocolate Chips (I used 250g)

Method :

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. (I preheated at 160C)
2. Cream butter, then add both sugars and cream until fluffy. Add eggs and beat slightly, then add vanilla and beat until combined. Add malted milk powder and beat until combined.
3. Sift together flour, baking soda, and salt. Add to butter mixture, beating gently until just combined.
4. Add chocolate chips and stir in gently.
5. Drop by teaspoonfuls (or use a cookie scoop) and bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Bake less if you want chewy cookies; more if you want crispy cookies. (For me, 12 minutes yielded chewy cookies while 14 to 16 minutes yielded a crispy cookie)
6. Optional: Allow to cool completely, then use two cookies to make an ice cream sandwich. Add sprinkles to the sides of the ice cream, then wrap individually in plastic wrap

I'm linking this post to Cook Like a Star, an event co-hosted by Zoe of Bake for Happy Kids, Baby Sumo of Eat Your Heart Out and Mich of Piece of Cake. The featured chef for the month is Ree Drummond.