Week 4: Chocolate Malt (take 1?)

I had a suggestion/request for a chocolate malt flavor and since I've had a jar of malt powder in my cupboards for some time I thought I'd give it a try. It turns out that what I had was Classic Malt Ovaltine (which, by the way, I just realized is owned by Nestle. :( Why is that a bad thing? Here's some links. Breastfeeding.com looks like a particularly good summary. Let me know if you have a better link.) I decided to try it anyway, despite the fact it contains a host of ingredients other than just malt powder. When I have a moment without a wriggly, nursing, or sleeping baby in my lap I will do some research on malt powder/syrup/flavorings. I am not sure if the flavor we know as "malt" is the combination of ingredients in things like Ovaltine, Carnation Malted Milk, and Whoppers, or if it can be achieved through plain malt powder or malt syrup. I plan on finding out.

This one gets mixed reviews. At Family Dinner tonight, one person (M) told me it was her favorite so far, and another (N) told me it was her least favorite so far. I can barely taste the malt flavor, although others said they could taste it. I can taste a difference in flavor, but not one that I can clearly define. The malt powder also strongly changed the texture from what I am used to. It has a much harder consistency, although M commented that she thought it was smoother. For me, it's more like biting into a chocolate bar than a piece of fudge. It's just too dense. I have some thoughts on trying for a Chocolate Malt flavor again, to get the consistency I'm used to, with a nice Whopper-ish flavor to it.

As an aside, I have decided to cut the recipe in half for most of my batches. It leaves me with much less to eat (which is a good thing, really), and will cut down on things like the cost of butter. Speaking of butter, as I was converting the recipe I realized that I have accidentally been doubling the butter in my last couple batches. I know I doubled it in the last batch (I have an image of an entire stick of butter floating in the fudge), but I'm not quite sure how many times I have done it. So I plan on experimenting with the quantity of butter and see what kind of difference it makes.

The recipe for this one, if you want to try it:
1/3 cup cocoa
1 1/4 cup sugar (I cut the sugar down to account for the extra sweetener in the Ovaltine)
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 cup milk
3/4 cup malt powder (dissolved into the milk)
1/2 TBSP corn syrup
1/4 cup butter
1/2tsp vanilla