Valentine’s Day Part Two: Malted Milk Cake & Frosting

My boyfriend & I are some of the biggest fans of whoppers that you’ll find out there. Most people I know don’t like the malt taste, but I adore it! I can eat a box of whoppers all by myself. When I saw this recipe, I knew I had to try it. It’s a malt cake (I could barely taste it) with a chocolate malted frosting. Now, although I couldn’t taste the malt in the cake, the frosting definitely made up for it. It was DELICIOUS! My boyfriend says that the frosting just tastes like chocolate frosting, but what does he know.. 🙂 He doesn’t even like sweets!

I split the batter into a 9×13 pan and an 8×8 pan so that I would have a thinner layer to be able to stack upon one another and it worked out perfectly. I used cookie cutters to cut out the heart shape– TIP: Press the cookie cutter into your cake, LEAVE IT IN THERE, and then use a spatula to slide underneath the shape and cookie cutter. Lift gently, and then press out the cake onto parchment paper. Works like a charm! Don’t bother cutting the shape in the pan, removing the cookie cutter, and then trying to get it out. You’ll ruin the cake for sure!

1 cup softened butter
2 cups sugar
5 egg whites
3 cups sifted self-rising flour
1 cup whole milk
1/2 cup malted powder
2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour 2 (9-inch) cake pans.

Using an electric mixer, cream butter until fluffy. Add sugar and continue to cream well for 6 to 8 minutes. Add egg whites, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Whisk malt powder into milk. Add flour and milk mixture alternately to creamed mixture, beginning and ending with flour. Add vanilla and continue to beat until just mixed.

Divide batter equally among prepared pans. Level batter in each pan by holding pan 3 or 4 inches above counter, then dropping it flat onto counter. Do this several times to release air bubbles and assure you of a more level cake. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until done. Cool in pans 5 to 10 minutes. Invert cakes onto cooling racks. Cool completely.

Chocolate Malted Frosting
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup butter
6 T milk
1 cup malted powder
1 cup cocoa
1/2 tsp vanilla
3 1/4 cups powdered sugar

Mix milk and malted powder in electric mixer. Add cocoa and vanilla. Mix until a well blended (as in non-lumpy) paste. Add butter and shortening and cream. Add sugar and beat for 4-5 minutes.

For the writing on top, I used a candy decorating pen bought from Williams Sonoma, but you can find it HERE or HERE. They’re really easy to work with and make life so much simpler. No messy clean up! I probably should have tried piping out a bit before though before writing directly on the cake. Oh well!

OH! and just for kicks, this is what some of the Valentine’s Day cards that I sent out to people look like:
Everything made by hand! Homemade is the way to go. 🙂 The heart is an example of what my cricut machine that I got for Christmas can do. What the heck is a cricut machine anyway? Check out my previous post about it.
You can buy the smaller version or go all out and get the bigger version.