Make your Monday a little sweeter with these homemade chocolate malt cupcakes. A delicious combination of chocolate malt cupcakes topped with a vanilla, white chocolate and malt flavoured buttercream. These will be perfect for your next baking project!
I love sharing all my new cupcake creations on the blog, so this time I turned to another of my absolute favourite chocolate sweets.
Are you familiar with Maltesers? They’re malt balls covered with a thin layer of milk chocolate. They’re crunchy, sweet and I could definitely eat an entire sharing bag all to myself!
For these cupcakes you have a choice of a few different cupcakes to bake: you can bake a classic chocolate cupcake or bake a chocolate or vanilla cupcake with malt powder added. Sometimes I like to use my favourite chocolate cupcake recipe. It’s made with dark chocolate and cocoa powder for rich chocolate flavour, however on this occasion I decided on baking chocolate cupcakes with malt powder added to the cupcake batter as well as the buttercream. The buttercream of which is my recipe and the chocolate malt cupcake recipe I found on this amazing website.
These cupcakes are fantastic as they are, but topping them with a generous helping of my homemade buttercream takes this cupcake recipe to the next level. This recipe is almost identical to my favourite vanilla buttercream, however with this buttercream I’ve added malt powder and white chocolate. The best thing is the buttercream tastes exactly like the centre of a Malteser. I have to admit after I finished the first cupcake I was reaching for another straight away!
Running this blog has certainly given me a serious sweet tooth!
If you are a Malteser lover just like me then you’ll love this cupcake flavour combo. Bake the cupcakes for parties, a girls evening in or even for afternoon tea. They’ll be an instant hit! The cupcakes got a resounding thumbs up from the taste testers, particularly one who had just come home from a long day at work and devoured two of these cupcakes in one sitting!
(Makes 12)
Ingredients:
Chocolate Malt Cupcakes:
50g cocoa powder
175g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon salt (add just a pinch if using salted butter)
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
225g caster sugar
175g butter, softened
2 large free-range eggs, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
175ml milk
4 tablespoons malt powder (such as Horlicks or Ovaltine)
Vanilla White Chocolate Malt Buttercream:
225g butter, softened
250g icing sugar, sifted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
40g malt powder, sifted
125g white chocolate, melted and cooled slightly – you can use dark or milk instead of white chocolate
4 tablespoons double cream or milk, plus extra if needed
Method:
- To make the cupcakes: Preheat oven to 180°C / 160°C fan / 350°F / Gas Mark 4. Line a cupcake tin with 12 paper cases and set aside. In the bowl of stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, sift the cocoa powder, flour, salt, bicarbonate of soda and sugar into the bowl. Mix together until combined. Now add the butter and mix until the butter is completely incorporated and no lumps of butter remain.
- In a jug or medium-sized bowl, whisk together the eggs, vanilla, milk and malt powder until thoroughly combined. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients in a slow and steady stream. Mix until combined, then stop of the mixer and scrape down the bottom and sides of the bowl and continue to mix for a further 20 seconds or so. At this point the batter might appear a little lumpy, however any lumps will disperse as the cupcakes bake. Evenly distribute the batter between the cupcake cases, bake the cupcakes for 20-25 minutes or until a cake tester when inserted into the centre comes out clean without any uncooked batter attached. Allow the cupcakes to cool on a wire rack completely.
- To make the buttercream: Cream the softened butter for a 2-3 minutes until pale in colour. Now add the icing sugar and vanilla and continue to mix for 5 minutes (stop the mixer halfway through and scrape down the bottom and sides of the bowl). Now add the malt powder and the cooled white chocolate and mix until combined. Finally, add the cream beat for another minute. Fit a piping bag with your favourite nozzle and fill with the buttercream. Decorate the cupcakes as desired. They’ll last in an airtight container at room temperature for 3 days.
Recipe Notes:
- Adjust the icing sugar depending on how sweet you like your buttercream. I find 250g is sweet enough given that we’re also adding white chocolate to the buttercream.
- I prefer using double/heavy cream and not milk in my buttercream as it results in a creamier and lighter texture. You may need to add more cream/milk until you reach your desired piping consistency.
- Decorate the cupcakes with whole and chopped Maltesers (Whoppers are the US equivalent). I used a sharp knife to cut the Maltesers up into smaller pieces, just be careful doing this. Make sure you decorate with the chocolate sweets just before serving otherwise they tend to go stale and lose their crunchy texture.
Enjoy!
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