Salted & Malted Chocolate Chip Cookies

Catchy name isn't it? It's been a fun few days for me trying to perfect this recipe, because it means I have a constant supply of cookies on my kitchen counter. And my whole house smells like cookies. Heck, even my hair was smelling like cookies. For those of you who love chocolate chip cookies as much as I do, you know this is a good thing.

Besides the catchy name, keep an open mind about these cookies and don't get knock 'em til you've tried them. They came about because I've been wanting to try a bunch of different experiments with my chocolate chip cookies. Not that there's anything wrong with my regular foolproof chocolate chip cookie recipe, but I'd seen a few different variations recently and I wanted to try it out for myself.

The first experiment was adding lots of salt, after having these awesome salty chocolate chip cookies at Hart's Pub during the Gourmet Rabbit launch party. Apparently it was the same cookie dough they use for their chocolate chip cookie skillet and it was eye-opening. The extra dash of salt really balanced out the sweetness of the chocolate in these freshly baked cookies, making them so intensely moreish. The other recipe I was interested in trying was Pioneer Woman's Malted Milk Chocolate Chip Cookies because how darn good do they look?!

I decided to kill two birds with one stone. Actually it was going to be three, since my brother recently asked why I hadn't done anything with salted caramel in a while, so I was going to make them malted & salted caramel chocolate chip cookies. But after throwing some chopped up soft caramel chews into my first batch of cookie dough, I watched as these cookies bubbled and gooped themselves all over the tray and then cooled into a hard crunchy disk of messiness, all because of the caramel. As soon as I realised what was happening I made this panicked squeaking noise and then ran back to the remaining cookie dough to dig out the rest of the caramel pieces. After that I tried chopping up maltesers (or malted milk balls for those in the US) and sprinkling them on top. This sort of worked; it was delicious but the chocolate on the maltesers bubbled up and looked pretty darn ugly. Hm. A was more than happy to eat up the failed batches, something about the salt levels and the caramel helped to overcome his general lack of interest in cookies.

So with my final attempt at these cookies I kept it simple. It was my regular cookie dough with a large amount of extra salt plus tons of chocolate chips to help balance it out, and a good amount of malted milk powder. The result was this beauty of a cookie - thin, chewy in the centre with a golden, buttery crunch around the edges. The Salted & Malted Chocolate Chip Cookie! For some of the batches I baked them a little longer so they went dark golden brown and were crunchy all the way through (the way I usually like my cookies, see 3rd photo of this post) and these were great too. Basically it's up to you to decide if you want to make them chewy or crunchy and adjust the baking time accordingly. The hit of malt flavour adds something extra special, making it just like a malteser in cookie form. I used Horlicks, but I'm totally going to use Milo next time! I loved the hit of salt in every bite, I reckon it's a great recipe for anyone who doesn't have much of a sweet tooth. But the sweet tooths will love it anyway, because of all that chocolate ;)

Salted & Malted Chocolate Chip Cookies
(adapted from my basic chocolate chip cookie recipe, makes 36 cookies)
125g unsalted butter, softened
1 cup tightly packed brown sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 large egg
1/2 cup malted milk powder, or Horlicks, Milo or Ovaltine
1 1/4 cups (approx 175g) plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups + 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips (or more, because there's no such thing as too much chocolate!)

Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F) and line two cookie sheets with baking paper. Place butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer on high until fluffy and pale. Add vanilla and egg and beat on low for a minute to combine. Add malt powder and beat on medium for a minute to combine. With the mixer still on low, add in the sifted flour, baking powder and salt until just combined. The dough should come together and be quite dry and a bit sticky. Using a wooden spoon fold through 1 & 1/2 cups of chocolate chips.

Place level tablespoons of cookie mixture on a lined baking tray, press dough down to form a flat disk, about 1 cm high and 5 cm diameter. leaving at least 3cm space around each cookie to allow it to spread. With the extra 1/2 cup of chocolate chips, press a small amount of extra chips into the surface of each round. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until they start to turn golden brown on the edges. You can bake 2 trays at a time, but make sure to switch the top and bottom trays around halfway through to allow each tray to bake evenly. The sooner you remove them the chewier they will be. If you wish them to be crunchier, leave them in there for longer but make sure the bottoms don't burn (remember they will cook a bit more while cooling on the trays). Allow to cool and harden slightly on the tray for 5 minutes before placing biscuits on a wire rack to cool further.