Tuesdays with Dorie—Chocolate Malted Whopper Drops

A bit of malted milk and a bit of chocolate are the perfect combination for these kid-approved candy cookies!

Malteds and Milo
Malteds bring back lots of memories for me. If you grew up in Canada, you probably remember The Malt Stop at The Bay that had a red stop sign as their logo. Every time we shopped there, I would beg my mom or dad to head to the basement to buy me one. I remember having it a lot, so I think it was a favorite drink of my parents as well! It was served in a special tall glass with a "Malt Stop" sign on it. Unfortunately, all the Malt Stops have closed.

Photo from Flickr by "fortunate son"

If you know of a good place to get a malted milk shake, let me know.
Also, if you have a good malted milk shake recipe,
pass it along or leave a comment!

Another favorite treat when I was growing up was (and still is!) Milo, a chocolate malt powder that is a common drink served to children in Australia. When I was a kid, family friends would bring a tin back from their Australian travels, and we would measure it out tablespoon by tablespoon making sure we all had our fair share. We'd scoop it onto a tall glass of milk, eat most of the chocolate with a spoon, and stir in whatever was left into the milk.

Recently, a version of Milo from the Caribbean started showing up on grocery store shelves, but it doesn't compare in taste to the Australian version, which is more chocolatey. Last year, I found a small local shop that sells the version from Singapore, so now I'm set. {I even have a canister that's labeled "Milo"!}

Milo Bar
When I was travelling in Australia years ago, I tasted the best chocolate bar in the world — the Milo Bar. It was pressed Milo covered in chocolate. I savored every Milo bar I could find, and it's still my favorite chocolate bar, but unfortunately it's not sold in Canada. After some internet research, I found that the bar now has a caramel layer. Although I haven't tasted this version, I can't imagine it tasting better than the original. In fact, there is a petition to "bring back the original Milo bar!"

Online petition - Bring back the original Milo Bar

I even kept a wrapper from my travels to Australia, and I'm always looking for recipes that use Milo so I was excited to try it in this cookie recipe. {I wonder what this recipe would taste like with this bar in it instead of the Whoppers....}

You can buy a Milo Bar {the new version} through an online store, Cyber Candy, in the UK. For $26.90 (Canadian), I could buy one Milo bar (including shipping). {I think I'll ask for it for my birthday!}

Do you have a favorite candy bar that you can't get locally? What is it?

Taste Test Time: Milo, Horlick's Malt Powder or Ovaltine
The recipe called for malted milk powder (or Ovaltine, regular or chocolate-flavored). "Which one I choose?" my daughter used to say. Instead of choosing, I decided to try a taste test and use Milo, Horlick's Malt Powder (vanilla), and Ovaltine (original chocolate). If you've never tasted Milo before, here's a great article that compares it to Ovaltine.

Whoppers or Maltesers

"Whoppers: the original malted milk balls" — Hershey's Whoppers
"Maltesers: the lighter way to enjoy chocolate" — Mars' Maltesers

For the candy part of this cookie, the recipe calls for Whoppers (also known as Maltesers in some parts of the world). Here's a great video to information about how Maltesers are made. {I was only able to find Maltesers, so I can't give you a taste test on Whoppers versus Maltesers. Update: I have been able to find a bag of both and the Maltesers win hands down.}

Playing Around
This past weekend, we took a trip to a great winter ski resort close to Ottawa called Mont Tremblant. In the off season, it's a great place to hike, shop, golf, and eat! We did a lot of the last activity and not enough of the others!

We ended up at an amazing restaurant called Plus Minus Café. From the amuse bouche, which was a spectacular drink that's worth a trip of its own, to the dessert, this restaurant blends the boundaries between art and food in a way I've never seen before.

I was inspired by Sylvain Proulx, the artist-chef at Plus Minus Café, to try making sugar-coated spaghetti {or spaghettini} as a way to show off these candy cookies. After dipping the raw spaghetti in water and shaking off the excess, I dipped it in colored sugar. Then, I skewered a cookie and popped them into a vase — a candy cookie bouquet. {Use spaghetti for this, not spaghettini which is thinner and weaker.}

"The discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness
than the discovery of a new star"
— quote on menu at Plus Minus Café

Recipe

You can find the recipe for Chocolate Malted Whopper Drops in the book Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan or here. To see how the rest of the TWD group fared with this week's recipe, click here and then click on each blogger! Thanks to Rachel of Confessions of a Tangerine Tart who chose the recipe for this week.

As some TWD bakers noted during the week in the P&Q section, the recipe in the book doesn't suggest a temperature to bake the cookies at. Dorie provided some help on this and left a comment at the TWD blog:

"The temperature was left out of the recipe for the Whoppers —
it should be 350 degrees F."

As one TWD member, Erin, suggests through her blog name: When in Doubt…Leave it at 350.

Tasting Notes
My kids were thrilled after school this week. My youngest even lost her wiggly tooth after taking a bite of one of these delicious candy cookies! Of course, my favorite version of these cookies were the Milo ones. And, I'm glad to report that my kids liked these too. My husband preferred the ones made with Horlick's (Hmmph). The ones made with Ovaltine were our least favorite, but they were still delicious enough to gobble up.