malted milk brownies

with Maltesers and malted milk powder

What I’m reading: Marian Keyes’ newest book, My Favourite Mistake. I love Marian Keyes, and really loved this book. It feels like it should be a guilty pleasure, but to be quite honest, I didn’t feel guilty about enjoying it - engaging, charming, witty, moving

What I’m listening to: Continental Garbage: Emily in Paris on Caroline O’Donoghue’s podcast, Sentimental Garbage (subtitled “Justice for Dumb Women”), which is a series of conversations defending books, movies and TV shows that would traditionally be classified as “chick lit”

What I’m eating: pastries at the Arty Baker in Sandymount (below)

This isn’t a groundbreaking recipe, but it’s one that is guaranteed to work, and will definitely be a crowd-pleaser. I was testing lots of different brownie recipes last week for my next Irish Times column, and realised something halfway through: when you add “mix-ins” to your brownie batter (usually chocolate chips), it does two things. Firstly, it bumps up the chocolate content, which can only be a good thing in a brownie. Secondly, it adds structural integrity to the brownie. I’m not sure exactly how this works, but if I was to guess, the chocolate chips bring the temperature of the batter down right before baking, meaning that the brownie can start to set at the same time as it bakes, resulting in a more robust brownie.

I realised this at the same time as I was having a conversation with someone about Maltesers vs. Minstrels as a popcorn accompaniment at the cinema. For some reason, it reminded me of the frog/rat debate (if you haven’t heard of it, the theory is that everybody is either a frog or a rat - I, for example, am firmly in the frog camp), and I really think that some things in life can be boiled down to a binary selection: Maltesers or Minstrels? Frog or rat? Team Jacob or Team Edward? Anyway

I thought that it would be fun to replace some of the chocolate chips in these brownies with crushed Maltesers (for flavour and texture) and I included some malted milk powder in the batter too, to bolster the malty flavour.

If you haven’t heard of malted milk powder, it’s made from a mixture of malted barley, wheat flour, and evaporated whole milk powder, and I think it used to be quite popular as a drink (often sold under the brand Horlicks). I used Ovaltine here, which is similar, but also contains chocolate, which I feel can only be a good addition in a brownie recipe.

recipe: malted milk brownies