Malted Milk Ball Cake

[Deborah]

Yes, I love malted milk balls. It was one of my favorite things as a child and even now as an adult. But I was thinking how great it would be to have a cake that tastes like a malted milk ball(although less sweet). Has anyone made one? Any ideas or suggestions? I figured if there was a good recipe out there this would be the place to ask! Thanks! I appreciate it! Help me satisfy my cravings!

[johnnyd]

Yes, I love malted milk balls. It was one of my favorite things as a child and even now as an adult. But I was thinking how great   it would be to have a cake that tastes like a malted milk ball(although less sweet). Has anyone made one? Any ideas or suggestions? I figured if there was a good recipe out there this would be the place to ask! Thanks! I appreciate it! Help me satisfy my cravings!

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Is this at all related to the elusive "Three Musketeers Souflee"?

[Deborah]

Three Musketeers Souflee??? Sorry I must have missed that one. This is a genuine request.

[johnnyd]

Sorry!

I've always put malt-products in the same category. 3Musketeers filling is basically the same stuff as Malted Milk Balls ("Maltesers" in Europe) only super-dried.

[KatieM]

Deborah,

I have indeed heard of a malted milk ball cake. Malted milk balls are my mom's favorite candy, and we found a recipe for a cake for her once. I'll see if I can find it . . .

Ooh, here it is. Now bear with me, this is a long one. It's just printed on a piece of paper, so I can't credit the source.

Chocolate-Malted Layer Cake with White-Chocolate Frosting

Cake:

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa

1/2 cup instant malted milk powder

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

2/3 cup vegetable shortening

1 3/4 cups sugar

3 eggs

4 oz unsweetened chocolate squares, melted

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 3/4 cups chocolate milk

White-chocolate frosting:

1 1/4 cups heavy cream

3/4 cup butter (no substitutes)

1/4 cup confectioners sugar

1 lb (about 2 2/3 cups) white chocolate chips

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/3 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips

Make cake: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Combine cocoa and malt powder in a small bowl. Grease three 9" cake pans and dust with cocoa-malt mixture. In a medium bowl stir together the flour, remaining cocoa-malt mixture, baking powder and baking soda. Set aside.

In a large mixer bowl cream the shortening and sugar together. Add eggs one at a time. Add melted chocolate and vanilla. Add flour mixture and chocolate milk alternately. Scrape batter into prepared pans. Bake 17-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely before frosting.

Make Frosting: In a large saucepan bring cream, butter and sugar to a boil. Remove from heat and stir in white chocolate chips. Let stand a few minutes, then add vanilla and whisk until smooth. Pour into a mixer bowl and chill 2 hours until thickened but pourable. Beat on high speed until fluffy. Fold in mini chocolate chips.

Use frosting as both a filling between layers and as icing.

Now, I'm not sure my mom actually liked this recipe much, so I'm searching for a better one to make for her for Mother's Day. She is a malted milk ball fiend, and her name is also Deborah (even spelled the same way). How weird is that?

Actually, I think there is a recipe in Nigella's Feast for a Malteser cake. When I get some more typing energy, I'll post that one. Or if anyone has tried it and wants to post their thoughts, that would be great.

Hope this helps!

Katie

[Deborah]

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you Katie! I really appreciate it! I would love to see the other recipe too. That is funny that your Mom loves malted milk balls and spells her name the same. Please do post the other recipe when you have a moment I really want to try this soon.

[JAZ]

I can't help with the cake recipe, but I was looking for a malted-milk truffle center for my Christmas truffles, and came across a filling for sandwich cookies from a cookie book by Nancy Baggett.

I altered it a little, and it made a great filling. Maybe you could use it between the layers or even as a frosting.

Chocolate-Malt Filling

1 cup white chocolate chunks or chips

2/3 cups milk chocolate chunks or chips

1/4 cup unsalted butter

3/4 cup plus 2 tbsp plain malted milk powder

1 3oz package cream cheese, softened

1/3 cup milk

2 tsp vanilla extract

Melt chocolate and butter in small heavy saucepan over low heat and cool slightly.

Beat the malted milk powder and cream cheese until well blended and completely smooth. Beat in half of the chocolate mixture just until incorporated. Beat in the milk a little at a time until well blended. Beat in the remaining chocolate mixture and the vanilla until evenly incorporated.

At this point the texture will be really strange and viscous. Don't worry. Refrigerate for 30 minutes, or until somewhat thickened but not stiff. Beat the filling on high speed until light in color and very fluffy, about 3 minutes more; scrape down the sides several times.

[lexy]

I'm pretty sure there's a recipe for a malted milk ball cake in one of Nigella Lawson's books - Feast, I think. I'll check this weekend.

Whoops, I see KatieM beat me to this. Let us know how your cake turns out - I love maltesers.

Edited May 6, 2005 by lexy (log)

[Deborah]

Thanks Janet and Lexy! That filling sounds divine! If anyone has that Nigella Lawson book could you please post or PM me the recipe? I am so excited to see that there are recipes for this!

[KatieM]

Ok, I've got some coffee in me, and so now have some more typing energy! I found the Nigella recipe, it was indeed in Feast. Which is a great book, BTW.

Chocolate Malteser Cake

For the cake:

3/4 cup light brown sugar

1/2 cup superfine sugar

3 eggs

3/4 cup milk

1 T butter

2 T Horlicks malted milk powder

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa, sifted

1 t baking powder

For the Frosting and Decoration:

2 cups confectioners' sugar

1 t unsweetened cocoa

1/3 cup Horlicks malted milk powder

1 stick plus 1 T soft unsalted butter

2 T boiling water

2oz Malted Milk Balls

Make sure all ingredients are at room temp before starting. Preheat oven to 325. Butter and line two 8" cake pans with parchment.

Whisk together the sugars and eggs (in your stand mixer) while you measure out the other ingredients. Heat the milk, butter and Horlicks powder in a saucepan until the butter melts, and it is hot but not boiling. When the sugars and eggs are light and frothy, beat in the hot butter mixture, and then fold in the flour, cocoa, baking powder and baking soda. Scrape batter evenly into the two pans and bake for 25 minutes. The cakes should have risen and spring back when pressed gently. Let them cool on a rack for 5-10 minutes, then turn them out of their pans. Cool completely before icing.

She uses a food processor to make the icing, so that you don't have to sift the 10x sugar. You could use a mixer if you wanted to, I'm sure. Blitz the 10x sugar, cocoa and Horlicks powder to remove all the lumps. Add butter and process again (this is why you need nice soft butter). Stop, scrape down, and start again, pouring the boiling water down the funnel until you have a smooth buttercream.

She only uses the icing between the layers and on top, not on the sides, so if you wanted to ice the sides, you'd probably need to double the recipe to have enough. The malted milk balls are placed in a circle around the top of the cake.

She claims you must use Horlicks powder as opposed to American malted milk powder, because the Horlicks has less sugar and more malt flavor. She gives the Vermont Country Store as a source for the powder.

I think you would be fine with regular malted milk powder, though.

Actually, I think that the best recipe would be your favorite chocolate cake recipe (although not a dark one, more of a milk chocolate one) with the addition of some malted milk powder and the filling descriped above by Jaz. That sounds the best to me, although I will probably try this Nigella recipe, since everything else of hers I've tried has turned out pretty well.

Anyone actually tried making a malted milk ball cake out there?

edited because I can't figure out how to get links to work.

Edited May 6, 2005 by KatieM (log)

[Deborah]

Thank you so much! I can't wait to experiment! That recipe looks great!

I really appreciate the time everyone took to post these recipes!

[ludja]

I can't help with the cake recipe, but I was looking for a malted-milk truffle center for my Christmas truffles, and came across a filling for sandwich cookies from a cookie book by Nancy Baggett.

I altered it a little, and it made a great filling. Maybe you could use it between the layers or even as a frosting.

Chocolate-Malt Filling

1 cup white chocolate chunks or chips

2/3 cups milk chocolate chunks or chips

1/4 cup unsalted butter

3/4 cup plus 2 tbsp plain malted milk powder

1 3oz package cream cheese, softened

1/3 cup milk

2 tsp vanilla extract

...

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Yum, this sounds great to me on a yellow cake.

[Sartain]

She claims you must use Horlicks powder as opposed to American malted milk powder, because the Horlicks has less sugar and more malt flavor. She gives the Vermont Country Store as a source for the powder.

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For a closer source of Horlicks, you might want to try your closest Asian (Chinese) supermarket, I've always been able to find it in the chinatowns where I have lived. It's a staple for Hong Kong Chinese.

The recipes sound great. I might try it this weekend too.

[alligande]

I tried nigella Lawsons Malteser cake, (thanks for posting) I modified the filling/buttercream) using butter, icing sugar, hot milk and malted milk powder so that the cake would be more like the sweet. To get the malteser flavor I had to add alot more malt to the mix about a cup+. I used Carnation which had a nice mild flavor. I toped with cake with a ganache

The cake was very popular with husband and neighbours and did taste like a malted milk ball.

Maltesers and malted milk balls look the same and are related but do not taste the same, the malteser is milder in malt taste. I think this is why Nigella suggests using Horlicks, but the carnation did give me a malteser rather than milk ball taste.

[alligande]

I did not fully read the Horlicks explanation, This explains the need for lots of carnation, for the filling I used 2 sticks of butter, 2T boiling water 1 cup of icing sugar and a lot of carnation powder, I just kept adding untill I got the taste I wanted. I did add a little extra water. The malt powder intially caused the icing to be corse but I did not want to add any more water, by the time I served the cake (about 3 hours) it had melted and was smooth.

[KatieM]

So I made a malted milk ball cake for my mom for Mother's Day. She loved it! I tried to get a picture, but as I just moved, I couldn't find my digicam, and the cake was torn into (at breakfast, no less ) before I could find a suitable replacement camera. So here's what I made:

I used the cake recipe from the Nigella book, which is sort of a milk chocolate flavored hot milk sponge cake. It was seriously easy, but I thought that it was only a so-so cake by itself. Lucklily, the cake was saved by

The most awesome filling/icing ever! (Posted by JAZ)

It's sort of a modified whipped ganache, and it worked beautifully! The flavor was excellent, and it spread so nicely on the cake. The mouthfeel was lovely, too. I can see how it would be a perfect filling for truffles. It also set up very nicely on the cake just at room temperature. I can't really describe it, you'll all just have to try it for yourselves. I think I'm going to use this method for my standard chocolate icing from now on, just changing the levels of chocolate intensity and of course ommitting the malted milk powder. At the very least, the printed recipe will be the only one I use for a malted milk ball cake. Oh, I doubled the printed recipe to make sure I had enough icing for the cake. I had some leftover, but I don't think I would have had enough to fill and cover the cake if I hadn't doubled it. Also, I made the cake and the icing the night before, and only whipped the icing in the morning, so it doesn't hurt it to sit in the fridge for more than the 30 minutes suggested. I may have let it sit at room temp for a few minutes before whipping, but that's about it.

Thank you JAZ for posting the best malted milk ball filling/icing imaginable! Seriously, I urge all of you to try this.

Note: I will probably try to find the Horlicks powder next time. Carnation just didn't give me a strong enough kick. The cake was still great, though!

[Deborah]

Thank you everyone for posting your findings! I am so excited to try these recipes! I just need an excuse to make a cake!

[JanKK]

Ok ........it's not cake .......but if you really like Malted Milk Balls and you like to make ice cream, try the "Milk Chocolate Malted Ice Cream" from Claudia Fleming's book, "The Last Course" It is absolutely the most fabulous stuff. (And if you like a little crunch in your ice cream, you can take it a step further and chop up some malted milk balls and toss them in too !)

--Jan :)

[NutMeg]

Has anyone actually made a malted milk ball itself? I'm dying to figure out how to make my own - and that little crunchy center remains elusive. Anyone have any tips? In the meantime, I think I'll have to console myself with a Malt Cake or two....

Meg

[miladyinsanity]

Has anyone actually made a malted milk ball itself?  I'm dying to figure out how to make my own - and that little crunchy center remains elusive.  Anyone have any tips?  In the meantime, I think I'll have to console myself with a Malt Cake or two.... 

Meg

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You'll need a mixture that sets up as soon as it carbonates. I think it'd be best left to the professionals.

[peanutgirl]

Cake before the garnish of leftover Easter glut of Robin's Eggs.

Very good. Family deemed this one a keeper !

[McAuliflower]

Has anyone actually made a malted milk ball itself?  I'm dying to figure out how to make my own - and that little crunchy center remains elusive.  Anyone have any tips?  In the meantime, I think I'll have to console myself with a Malt Cake or two.... 

Meg

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You'll need a mixture that sets up as soon as it carbonates. I think it'd be best left to the professionals.

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Couldn't it be similar to making honey comb candy?

Carbonate a hot sugar solution with bicarb and vinegar. The sugar solution cools which solidifes it. The only difference would be adding malted milk powder to the mix.

I think it's definitely do-able.

[Becca Porter]

Today I am making a Chocolate Malted Pie from Ken Haedrichs PIE. I highly recommend this cookbook. I have just kicked off my pie baking season. This pie has an oreo crust, a malt, chocolate, cream filling. Then is topped with a layer of crushed whoppers and chocolate whipped cream. It sounds really good.