Chocolate Whoppers Cookies

Chocolate-covered malted milk balls are added to a rich chocolate cookie dough for a sweet, malted treat! These chocolate Whoppers cookies are great to make if you have extra Halloween candy.

After tinkering with my base chocolate cookie dough recipe seen in these black forest cookies, I figured what better time than the present to roll it on out in these Whoppers cookies, too?

With their deep chocolatey cookie dough and bursts of malted milk candy pieces, I never need convincing to make these again.

Why This Recipe Works

• There's a good balance of flour, cocoa powder, and sugars. When compared to regular chocolate chip cookies, cookie recipes with chocolate dough will require more sugar to account for the added bitterness of natural cocoa powder.
• Chilling the dough is crucial in helping these cookies bake without spreading too far.
• You'll be removing the cookies from the oven when they still look just underdone. They'll continue to cook from the residual heat and firm up nicely as they cool. This prevents dry and overly crisp cookies.

Recipe Ingredients

• Whoppers: These are chocolate-covered malted milk ball candies with a crisp malted center. They're similar to a candy more popular outside of the U.S. called Maltesers, which can be used here too if those are more readily available to you.
• Cocoa powder: Go for unsweetened natural cocoa powder versus Dutch-process varieties. We want the more acidic nature of natural cocoa powder (most if not all of the options you'll see at standard grocery stores) to interact with the baking soda and help these cookies rise.
• Sugar: Both brown and granulated sugar is used here to achieve a balance of chewy centers and crisp edges.
• Cornstarch: This adds softness to cookie dough batter.
• Espresso powder: Boosts that deep, rich chocolate flavor without making your baked good taste like mocha/coffee. You can leave this out if you prefer.

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Cream together the butter and sugars, then mix in the egg and vanilla extract.
2. Whisk together all of the dry ingredients separately, then add them to bowl with the wet ingredients.

3. Mix in the dry ingredients until just combined. No dry flour streaks should remain and the dough will have an even color. You don't want to over mix the cookie dough as that can cause the gluten to overly develop and lead to a tougher texture. Add the chopped Whoppers.
4. Fold in the Whoppers, then chill the cookie dough in the refrigerator for at least two hours, but it can go up to overnight.

5. Portion out one-and-a-half tablespoons of cookie dough, roll it into a ball, then place on parchment paper-lined baking sheets around two inches apart. You can press additional Whoppers pieces into the tops of them if you like. Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until the edges have set and the top surface appears dry. Let the cookies sit on the sheets for 10 minutes, then move to a wire rack to cool completely.

Recipe Tips and Tricks

• Soften butter properly. Butter is softened when applying a little pressure with your finger leaves a small indent in the stick when pressed. At this stage it will most optimally combine with sugar to form a whipped up, fluffy, creamy mixture. If the butter is too soft and greasy, that'll carry over into the baked good and lead to an unpleasant texture.
• Don't bake them too long. As they sit on the baking sheet for 10 minutes after baking, these Whoppers cookies will continue to bake some from the residual heat. They'll also harden and firm up as they cool, so it's okay if they look a bit underdone when you're pulling them out of the oven.
• Be nice to your cookie scoop! This cookie dough will harden up significantly as it chills. Let it sit out at room temperature for 10 or so minutes before scooping cookies so it's easier to handle. Squeezing hard on the handle to try and release very hard cookie dough can cause the mechanism to break.

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