Hey there.  I’ve got a new Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe for you.

Malted Milk Chocolate Chip Cookies.  I’m not big on picking a favorite anything and I have learned after trying many many chocolate chip cookie recipes that you can have more than one that you love.  We’ve always loved our Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies, and to this day, they remain my husband’s favorite.  My tastes have changed over time and while I still like that cookie, I can’t call it my absolute favorite.

So I’ve tweaked and tested and played around with different ideas and come up with some others that I enjoy as well.  For instance, there’s the Soft Chewy Peanut Butter Chip Cookie; I reduced the sugar and amount of chips and added cornstarch as well as a few other changes that I list in the post. It’s a softer, denser cookie. That’s a really good one and easily satisfies a peanut butter cookie craving, but feel free to substitute chocolate chips for the peanut butter chips, and perhaps that will be your winning chocolate chip cookie.

For this recipe, I wanted to shift again.  I love chocolate malts.  My mother used to take me downtown to a long gone department store, named Higbee’s, when I was young.  There was a small alcove on the bottom floor, I think, right next to the escalator that sold the most amazing chocolate malts. They served them in these small glasses that were narrow on the bottom and wider at the top, sort of a cross between a small ale glass and a pilsner.

I remember the glass because it was small and fit easily into my tiny hand, which meant I was not likely to drop it.  But the chocolate malt inside was the best chocolate malt I had ever had and was an anticipated treat on our trips downtown to Higbee’s.  Suffice to say, I’ve loved chocolate and malt for a long, long time. And yes, even if my warm memory has glorified it, I think that malt and every malt I ever had from that little stand will forever be my favorite.

This cookie is inspired by my love of malt and yet, it’s not a crazy heavy malted flavored cookie. (You can make it “maltier” by crushing up malted milk balls and adding them, but that was not my goal.) What the malt does is two-fold: it adds a lovely bit of mellow flavor to the cookie and the milk starch (like the cornstarch) adds density and softness.  At least that’s my theory.  I then added just a small amount of cocoa powder.  I didn’t want to turn this into a chocolate cookie, but I did want to give the malt some chocolate to hang out with.

You end up with a delicious, dense, soft and weighty cookie.  Seriously, when you pick one up, it’s weight might surprise you since it’s heavier than your average blond chocolate chip cookie. The color is deeper and richer from the cocoa and yet, you wouldn’t mistake it for a full on chocolate cookie (which is good, because it’s not.)

I used mostly milk chocolate chips here because I think that’s the way to go with malts, then balanced some of that sweetness with semi-sweet chips. I think mixing up chips in a cookie makes it more interesting and gives more depth of flavor, so mix it up with your cookies.  This is also a great strategy when your goal is to use up partial bags of chips you might have in your pantry.

I rarely pick favorites and I’m not going to commit to one today, but I will say that if there were a bunch of different chocolate chip cookies displayed out on a platter and I could only pick one… I would pick up one of these Malted Milk Chocolate Chip Cookies first…

then negotiate seconds later :)

Sharing is caring!