It's all in the presentation

Here are the choc malt squares that I mentioned in the last post, cut up and presented in cupcake wrappers. I was worried about the wobbly lines, but cut into small squares, as you can see, they look pretty good. In fact, someone at the afternoon tea today thought that they were professionally made!

They were pretty tasty. I got rave reviews - funny because they are very simple :-)

Here is the recipe, for those who asked me for it:

Choc-Malt Slice (from AWW)

Ingredients:

250g plain chocolate biscuits

1 cup maltesers

100g unsalted butter, chopped

1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk

400g milk chocolate, chopped coarsely

1 tbs vegetable oil

White chocolate (I used about 50-70g)

Method:

1. Grease 20x30cm rectangular pan (I used a 23cm square pan, which worked fine). Line base and sides with baking paper.

2. Process 200g of the biscuits until fine; chop remaining biscuits coarsely. 

3. Crush/chop maltesers (I put them in a plastic bag and got my girls to bash them with a glass). You don't want them powdered - leave some chunks.

4. Stir butter and condensed milk in a saucepan over low heat until smooth.

5. Combine processed and chopped biscuits with maltesers in a bowl; stir in butter mixture. Refrigerate 30 minutes. Then take it out just before you start the next step, or the chocolate will set too quickly.

6. Stir milk chocolate and in a double boiler or heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water until smooth. WARNING: Do NOT let the water touch the bottom of the bowl, or the chocolate might seize and be useless. Some people like melting chocolate in the microwave. I don't because my microwave always burns the chocolate, and I like standing over a bowl of melting chocolate stirring it - it makes me happy.

7. Set aside the milk chocolate, and melt the white chocolate as above.

8. Pour the milk chocolate over slice and spread out. Put the white chocolate in a piping bag (I use a snap-lock bag with the corner snipped off), and drizzle the white chocolate back and forth over the milk chocolate.

9. Take a toothpick or skewer and drag it across the slice to create a pretty pattern (see picture in the last post). Do this before the chocolate sets!

10. Refrigerate about an hour. Cut using a knife dipped in hot water. You'll want to cut this into pretty small squares.

Store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 4 days (although seriously I think you'll be lucky if it lasts that long)

Note: You could do as the original recipe says, and omit the white chocolate, sticking maltesers into the chocolate before it sets. Or you could just leave it as plain milk chocolate, but it won't look so pretty. The other idea, which my friend Catherine does with her malteser slice, is to skip the milk chocolate, top with white chocolate (you probably wouldn't want 400g of it - try 200-300), then before it sets, sprinkle crushed maltesers on top.

Then you'll need to find something to do with the rest of the condensed milk, as the tins hold 395g and annoyingly you only need 125mL. If you have a sweet tooth, you could try coffee the way my husband discovered in Vietnam - get a shot of coffee and pour it over condensed milk, stir, drink, and wait for your teeth to dissolve.