salted caramel malted milk cookies

This is a cookie that you can be proud of. This is a cookie that has Oomph. The recipe for these cookies requires that you make both a white chocolate malted milk powder “concoction”, for lack of a better word, and a salted caramel sauce that you then add to the cookie dough before forming the cookies. It may seem like a lot of steps, but all of them are easy to do and, dare I say, fun! Making caramel, for me, is one of the most fun things to do in life, plus it’s much better than the kind you buy in the store usually labeled as “ice cream topping”.

The resulting cookie is a sturdy, slightly chewy one with crisp, crunchy edges and a hint of malted milk and caramel. I substituted coffee extract for the vanilla extract, giving it a sort of a mocha note, but it is very subtle. Feel free to go with vanilla extract if you prefer. I then finished it up with some flaky Maldon sea salt, which I highly recommend.

salted caramel malted milk cookies 

ingredients 

1 recipe homemade salted caramel sauce (recipe below)

1 recipe white chocolate malted milk concoction (recipe below)

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup light brown sugar

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 egg, room temperature

1 teaspoon coffee extract (can use vanilla extract)

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 and teaspoon baking powder

1 and teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

Maldon flaky sea salt

method

Make the salted caramel and white chocolate malted milk concoction. Recipes below.

Heat oven to 375 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Set aside.

Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a medium bowl and stir with a whisk several times. Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, first add the unsalted butter and turn it on low for about a minute to soften the butter, then add the sugars and turn up the mixer to medium and let it go for about 5 minutes until butter/sugars are creamed and light in color and fluffy. Scrape down the bowl and let it go for another minute, then add the egg and coffee extract (or vanilla extract) and let it mix for another 3 minutes on medium. Turn off the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl again.

Next, add the flour mixture gradually in thirds and turn on mixer on low still with the paddle attachment. The reason to add it gradually is that if you add the flour all at once, it will spill out of the bowl from the paddle even when it’s on low. Stop mixing just when all the flour is mixed in and finish it up using a spatula.

Add in the white chocolate malted milk concoction in dollops while folding in with a spatula gradually, then drizzle half of the caramel over the mixture, folding it in a few times before adding the second half of the caramel. You want to fold in the caramel enough so that when you scoop you don’t have too much caramel in one scoop, but you don’t want the caramel blended into the batter too much that you don’t see streaks of it on each cookie.

I used a a standard sized ice cream scoop and spaced each scoop of cookie dough evenly about 2 inches between each cookie on parchment lined baking sheets, baking 6 cookies at a time. Using the standard ice cream scoop makes roughly 16 cookies. You can also make smaller cookies using a tablespoon-sized scoop, which would make about 2 and 1/2 dozen cookies.

Bake for about 11-12 minutes until lightly golden brown and tops don’t look wet or uncooked. After removing tray from oven, sprinkle the tops of each cookie with a small line of Maldon flaky sea salt. Leave cookies on trays for about 5 minutes as cookies will be very soft, but harden as they cool.

Store cookies only after they have completely cooled at room temperature in an airtight container for a few days at the most.

salted caramel sauce

ingredients 

2 Tablespoons water 

1/4 teaspoon lemon juice

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup heavy cream

1/4 teaspoon of salt

2 teaspoons of unsalted butter

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

method

In a small saucepan, place the water and lemon juice and the sugar, making sure all the sugar is wet from the water before heating up. 

Heat on medium heat for several minutes. Eventually it will reach a dark amber color. Keep in mind you don’t want to add the heavy cream if it’s too light, because the caramel sauce will not be dark enough, but try not to add it when it’s too dark, because you may get a bitter caramel sauce. That’s why I always use medium heat so it doesn’t get too dark too quickly. I also usually swirl the saucpan a little to make sure it is evenly colored.

When it reaches the desired color, carefully add the heavy cream while stirring constantly, being careful not to get a steam burn, since it will bubble and steam violently upon contact with the cream. Eventually when it stops bubbling add the vanilla extract, salt, and butter and transfer to a bowl and refrigerate until ready to use.

white chocolate malted milk powder concoction

Ingredients

4 ounces white chocolate, chopped into small pieces

6 Tablespoons malted milk powder

method

In a bain marie (double boiler), add the white chocolate over medium heat, and stir occasionally with a spatula until white chocolate is just melted and smooth. Remove from heat and add the malted milk powder and stir several times. Set aside at room temperature until ready to use.

2 responses to “salted caramel malted milk cookies”

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