Chocolate Malted Whopper Cookies (TWD)

I have total weakness for anything malted --- chocolate/vanilla malted shakes, whoppers, malted milk ice cream (thank you David Lebovitz for the recipe in The Perfect Scoop)... and these cookies! When I first purchased Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home To Yours, this recipe for Chocolate Malted Whopper Cookies was the first that I tried, and I've been baking them countless times since. I realize that I've never written a post on them (probably because they were quickly eaten before I could take pictures). Thanks to Rachel of Confessions of a Tangerine Tart, I now have an opportunity to write a post on these delicious cookies.

I have played with this recipe quite a bit, making them without the malted milk balls, substituting white chocolate for the bittersweet, adding chopped walnuts, not adding anything to the dough and using the plain cookies for ice cream sandwiches, etc. I would have to say that you can't go wrong with any of the variations, as the basic cookie dough (which has a healthy amount of malted milk and cocoa powder) has a terrific chocolatey malt flavor and a nice soft, cakey texture.
I was debating on what to do with recipe this time around, and lo and behold, look at what I encountered during my grocery run at Trader Joes:
Now, as many of you know, I'm not too crazy about peanut butter. Still, this just seemed too good to pass up! Why not substitute the whoppers with these treats. As you can see, it's essentially a malted milk ball with a layer of peanut butter and a layer of rich milk chocolate:
I used Carnation Malted Milk Powder, Callaebut cocoa powder, and coarsely chopped bittersweet chocolate (personally I wouldn't use a sweeter chocolate, as the cookie could get over the top sweet...unless you're into that). I cut the malt balls into halves (I didn't go any smaller, as they will disentigrate into the dough when baking). I like being able to distinguish what is added to the cookies, and you see the chocolate chunks and the melted malt balls in the cookie:
So, what did I think of the peanut butter malt balls? The PB flavor was subtle, and it added a nice slightly salty contrast to the malt and chocolate. I think that PB lovers would enjoy this, but personally, I'll stick to plain 'ole malt balls. These cookies are wonderful both warm just out of the oven (love the gooey melted malt balls) and at room temperature. Either way, they are delicious dunked in a glass of cold milk or served with ice cream.

If you want to make these cookies (I know you do :) ), you can find the recipe at Rachel's site. Better yet, for this recipe and many other wonderful recipes for homebaked treats, go get yourself a copy of Dorie Greenspan's cookbook, Baking: From My Home To Yours...I promise you won't regret it.

To see how the TWD bakers did with their cookies, check out the Tuesday's With Dorie blogroll.