Tag Archives: Malted Milk Powder

Malted Milk Chocolate Hamentashen

The Jewish holiday of Purim begins next week at sundown on Monday March 6. The traditional Purim treat are triangular shaped filled cookies known as Hamentashen. For those not familiar with this Jewish holiday, I present to you a basic primer, my version of Purim 101. Essentially, the Festival of Purim commemorates a time when the Jewish people living in ancient Persia were saved from extermination. As in every good story, you have your heroes and your villans.

The heroes of the story are Esther, a beautiful young Jewish woman living in Persia, and her cousin Mordecai, who raised her as if she were his daughter. Esther was taken to the house of Achashveirosh, King of Persia, to become part of his harem. King Achashveirosh loved Esther more than his other concubines, and made Esther his queen. Like all intelligent wives, she kept a thing or two about herself hidden from her husband. Upon advice from her cousin Mordecai, she kept her Jewish identity a secret from the King.

Our story’s villan is Haman, a rather arrogant, egotistical advisor to the King. The King appointed Haman as his Prime Minister. Haman despised Mordecai because Mordecai refused to bow down before Haman every time he passed by. Rather than seeking to destroy Mordecai alone for this slight, Haman decided to take revenge on the entire Jewish population living in the Persian empire. The King gave Haman permission to do as he pleased. Haman’s plan was to exterminate all of the Jews.

Nothing got past Queen Esther. She had her finger on the pulse on the kingdom. Somehow she overheard this plot to annihilate all the Jews. She consulted her cousin Mordecai and he persuaded Esther to speak to the king on behalf of the Jewish people. She told her husband, the king, of Haman’s plot against her people and somehow convinced him to save the Jewish people. We’re never told exactly how she convinced him, but there are rumours! The Jewish people were saved, and Haman and his ten sons were hung.

The holiday of Purim focuses on the pleasures of food and drink, more than any other Jewish holiday. It is a time for celebrating and letting go. The shape of hamentashen symbolically represent Haman’s three-cornered hat. Typically, hamentashen are filled with jam or a poppyseed filling.

I’m bucking tradition here and flavouring my hamentashen with Malted Milk Chocolate. Check out the video to see how they come together.

If you are not baking with malted milk powder, you’re missing out on a ton of flavour. Stella Parks called malted milk powder the umami bomb of the baking world. It adds a toasted creamy richness to your baked goods. Ovaltine is one brand readily available at the supermarket. It contains the addition of chocolate. For a more concentrated hit of malted flavour, without the chocolate, I love Hoosier Hills Farms malted milk powder.

These Malted Milk Chocolate hamentashen have a triple hit of malted milk. There is malted milk powder in both the dough and the filling and then I chopped up some malted milk balls to coat the dipped hamentashen in.

Milk chocolate really allows the malted flavour to shine through. Jesse Szewczyk inspired the filling for these hamentashen with her Malted Milk Chocolate Rugelach.

If you’re a Hamentashen novice, here are a few tips for success:

Roll dough between 2 sheets of parchment paper and chill before cutting into circles
Don’t overfill. You will regret it when they burst open in the oven.
Brush edges of dough with beaten egg white. it acts as an effective glue to hold them together.
Pinch edges and corners really well when shaping.
Freeze formed hamentashen for about 10 minutes before baking. They will hold their shape better.
Brush unbaked hamentashen with beaten egg white for some shine.

Click here to print recipe for Malted Milk Chocolate Hamentashen.

No Churn Malted Chocolate Swirl Ice Cream

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No churn ice cream means that no ice cream machine is required. You just mix all the ingredients together, freeze, and voila, creamy, smooth, luscious ice cream. How is that possible you ask?

When you make ice cream the traditional way, in an ice cream machine, the action of the paddle, churning the mixture, is actually incorporating air into the ice cream, so you end up with a light and fluffy finished product.

The secret to no churn ice cream is two key ingredients. The first is whipped cream. You whip the cream before mixing it into the other ingredients. The act of whipping causes the volume to increase and incorporates air into the cream. Whipping the cream replaces the work of the ice cream machine.

The second key ingredient is sweetened condensed milk which has a very high sugar content. Sugar lowers the freezing point and prevents the ice cream from becoming rock hard. The “condensed” in sweetened condensed milk, means that the milk has been cooked down to reduce the water content. Less water means that you will not form ice crystals. So you end up with a smooth and velvety ice cream.

But sweetened condensed milk is a mixed blessing. While the high sugar content keeps it creamy, it can also produce some very queasily sweet ice cream. The solution, I have discovered, it to be strategic about the flavours that you incorporate into it. I would not add crushed Oreos to make Cookies and Cream, or fudge and marshmallows to make Rocky Road ice cream.

I added malted milk powder to my no churn ice cream. Stella Parks calls malted milk powder the umami bomb of desserts. Malted milk powder contains barley malt, wheat flour, milk powder, and salt. The barley malt gives malted milk powder a roasted, toasty earthy flavour. The salt aids in tempering the sweetness, and enhancing all the other flavours in whatever it is combined with.

Malted milk powder is mixed with some heated 1% milk to dissolve it. That gets cooled down while you whip the cream. Mix the sweetened condensed milk with the malted milk mixture and fold in the whipped cream, some vanilla bean paste and a pinch of salt. Pour that into a 9x 5 inch loaf pan.

I decided to add a chocolate swirl to my ice cream. A touch of coconut oil added to the melted chocolate keeps it from becoming too brittle when it freezes. Put the ice cream in the freezer for at least 5 hours before scooping.

Creamy, rich and smooth, with a real toasty depth of flavour, this is ice cream for grownups. If I weren’t socially distancing this summer, I would invite my friend Mrs Grizzly over for a few scoops. She is a malted milk aficionado.

Feel free to drizzle a little extra melted chocolate on top. I don’t think anyone will complain.

Click here to print recipe for No-Churn-Malted-Chocolate-Swirl-Ice-Cream-Download

Malted Milk Ice Cream

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Perhaps it’s the latent scientist in me, but I find the process of making ice cream fascinating. Taking something from a liquid to a solid state is just so cool. (pun intended).I adore the flavour of malted milk powder. It adds caramel, toasty, roasted notes to all sorts of desserts. But what exactly is malted milk powder? I wasn’t really sure where it came from, so I did a bit of research. Turns out that malted milk powder is a derivative of barley.

The process involves taking sprouted barley, drying and grinding it up into a powder. During this process, the starches in the grain are converted to sugar, producing a sweet dried grain powder. Dried malt becomes the base for beer, whiskey and malt vinegar.

When dried malt is mixed with wheat flour and milk powder, it becomes malted milk powder. This stuff is a flavour bomb. I love adding it to cookies and brownies. The addition of milk powder to the blend adds a creamy rich dairy note, which is why I love it added to ice cream. You need to read the label of the brand you are using. Some brands, like Ovaltine, add sugar and cocoa powder. Other brands, like Hoosier Hill Farm, keep it pure.

I made this ice cream with Ovaltine, as I liked the hint of chocolate it added to the ice cream from the cocoa powder in the mix. If you prefer a more intense malted flavour, use a brand without any added cocoa.

This recipe comes from the King Arthur website. They added a swirl of chocolate fudge sauce to theirs. I left that out, but added some chopped Mars Bars during the last few minutes of freezing my ice cream. I like the little surprise of chocolate malted nougat bits studded throughout the ice cream.

Click here to print recipe for Malted Milk Ice Cream.

Emergency Brownies

Click here to print recipe for Emergency Brownies.

Malted Chocolate Brownies

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The first night of Chanukah is this week, on Tuesday night. Flushed with the success of my Beehive challahs at Rosh Hashanah, I. wanted to create something special for Chanukah. A crazy thought floated into my head. What about building a menorah out of brownies? I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I wasn’t really sure how to go about creating it. I wasn’t one of those kids that played with building blocks, Leggo or puzzles. Barbie was more my thing.

I started with my favourite brownie recipe from Chef Michael Smith. I decided to switch out the cocoa powder with malted milk powder and added in some chopped malted milk balls for extra crunch. I chilled the brownies until firm and then I cut out an oval for the base. Using a small round cookie cutter I cut out little circles for the candle holders. I did a slightly larger circle for the shamash (helper) candle. I finally got a chance to use my food stylist tweezers! I mixed up some blue royal icing and glued on some edible blue pearls. To hold the candles I glued each one to a malted milk ball. I figured out that I needed to trim the bottom and top of the balls flat before gluing with royal icing.Even if you decide not to make a menorah, these malted chocolate brownies would make a delicious addition to your Chanukah party.

Click here to print recipe for Malted Chocolate Brownies.

Malted Milk Cookies with Milk Chocolate and Pecans

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I have a big jar of Hoosier Hill Farm malted milk powder in my pantry. Pastry wizard Stella Parks, told me to buy it. She promised me I’d find all kinds of uses for it.I adore the flavour of malted milk. I made malted milk drumstick ice cream cones a few years ago. For the uninitiated, a little primer on malted milk powder. All malt products come from barley. The grain is sprouted, then dried and ground. During this procedure, starches are converted to sugar and the end result is a sweet, dried grain powder. This is the base for much of the beer that is produced today.

The ground powder is also combined with wheat flour, milk powder, salt and sometimes sugar to create malted milk powder. Some brands, like Ovaltine also add cocoa powder to the mix. Malted milk powder has caramel, toasty, roasted notes. The addition of milk powder to the blend adds a creamy rich dairy note. It enhances most baked goods, complementing both vanilla and chocolate flavoured goods.I decided to add some to cookies. I started with a recipe for Chewy Malted Milk Chocolate Cookies from Yvonne Ruperti over at Serious Eats.I added some toasted pecans and switched out the honey for Barley Malt Syrup, to really boost the malt flavour. Honey or malt syrup help keep these cookies chewy. I also added a tiny sprinkle of flaked sea salt on top before baking. I’m considering mixing in some chopped Malteasers next time I bake these.

Instead of milk chocolate chips, I chopped up some Lindt milk chocolate bars. I really like the big chunks of milk chocolate studded throughout these cookies. A mix of milk and white chocolate would also be good. I think dark chocolate might be too overpowering. Using a portion scoop ensures that you get uniform cookies that are all baked at the same rate. I used a 1.5 ounce (3 tablespoons) sized scoop.Gently flatten the cookies with the palm of your hand. I added a tiny sprinkle of flaked sea salt to the top of each cookie. It balances all the sweetness perfectly.

These are a hefty, chewy, delicious cookie. Hints of caramel and a unique toasty roasted flavour keep them from being too cloyingly sweet. They are quite fantastic frozen, as my family can attest to.

Salt and Serenity

Tales from my kitchen