I love cookies, but I'm actually very particular about them. Not just anything sweet and sticky will do. That said, I love the weird dutch cocoa 99 cent cookies from Duane Reade, but... I generally prefer my cookies with a slightly sophisticated edge, some oats, maybe, or else more buttery, shortbread style cookies. Dip potential is essential, I like cookies in milk, cookies in tea, cookies in juice, and sweetness shouldn't be overwhelming.
These whopper drops fall on the seriously sweet end, so I wouldn't usually fall for them, (and the name remains a turn-off, I just like a little more elegance in my recipe names), but they have a secret weapon. This weapon, one that's been enthralling me for over twenty years, is malt powder, that essential ingredient in malted milk and more specifically in Herrell's malted vanilla ice cream. That ice cream fostered a thirst for malt powder that reaches far beyond the reasonable. Because of this, these cookies had caught my eye before, and I had made them, without chocolate bits and whoppers, already, but hadn't been that impressed and hadn't returned to the recipe.The malt balls do really add something special, though, a kind of chewiness that several others have referred to as 'caramelized,' and still warm and dipped in milk the cookies aren't so bad. The most interesting thing about the process of this recipe is that the batter, as Dorie mentions, is closer in looks and texture to frosting. Baked, however, it does its job just fine, and the cookies are light, cake-y, and more or less normal. The recipe can be found here.
