Malt Chocolate Peanut Butter Maltball Cookies

Ha! That's the longest cookie name ever. Maybe not, but still, a mouthful.
After a long bout of illness and infection, I finally overcame it (with antibiotics) and had a serious backlog of things I'd been wanting to make.

While perusing the latest items at Trader Joe's I stumbled across THIS:

Instantly I thought of a recipe I'd seen on a blog marked under my favorites, The Canadian Baker. I took her recipe and went with it. She mentioned hers were slightly cakey, but I don't like slightly cakey so I adjusted the recipe to suit my tastes. And, of course, I added Chocolate Peanut Butter Malt Balls instead of regular malt balls.

Here it is, inc luding adjustments:

Chocolate Malted Peanut Butter Maltball Drops

1 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 cup malted mi lk powder
1/4 cup nonfat powdered milk
1/3 cup Dagoba hot chocolate mix
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp sea salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup nonfat milk
2 cups chocolate covered peanut butter maltballs, coarsely chopped
6 oz. semisweet chocolate chips

Line two bakin g sheets with parchment or silicone mats.

Sift together the flour, malt powder, milk powder, hot cocoa powder, cocoa, baking powder and salt.

Preheat oven to 350F.
Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar together on medium speed for about 3 minutes, until very smo oth. Add the eggs one at a time, beating for 1 minute after each addition. Beat in the vanilla; don't be concerned if the mixture looks curdled - it will even out when the dry ingredients are added. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add half the dry ingredients, mixing just until they disappear into the batter. Mix in the milk, then the remaining dry ingredients, mixing only until they are incorporated. The batter will look more like fudge frosting than cookie dough - and that's fine. With the mixer on low, or by hand with a rubber spatula, mix in the malted milk balls and chopped chocolate.

Drop the do ugh by rounded tablespoonfuls onto the sheets, leaving about 2 inches of space between spoonfuls. Bake fore 11 to 13 minutes, rotating the sheets from top to bottom and front to back after 6 minutes. When done, the cookies will be puffed and set but slightly soft to the touch. Let the cookies rest for 2 minutes before using a wide metal spatula to transfer them to racks to cool to room temperature.

Repeat with the remaining dough, cooling the baking sheets between batches.

Makes about 30 cookies.