Baked Sunday Mornings: Malted Milk Chocolate Pots de Crème

I love a happy surprise, and that's exactly what I got from this week's Baked Sunday Mornings recipe, Malted Milk Chocolate Pots de Crème. The recipe produces amazing results for minimal effort. It only takes 5 minutes to make the custard: you heat heavy cream and malted milk powder to boiling, pour them over chopped milk chocolate, and whisk until smooth. In a separate bowl, you whisk together egg yolks, fleur se del, and sugar, and keep whisking while you slowly incorporate the hot cream-chocolate mixture. You pour the mixture through a sieve, divide in into ramekins, and bake them in a bain-marie until set (mine took 40 minutes to set, even though the recipe says it should take 20-30 minutes). You chill the custards, top them with malt balls, and serve.

My cooked custards were covered with a thin and unattractive film of air bubbles that formed during baking; I was glad that the crushed malt balls hid most of it. The texture of the custard is unbelievably good. It's luscious and silky smooth, yet incredibly light. I'm generally not a fan of milk chocolate, but I could not get enough of this custard and its incredible flavor of lightly sweet chocolate with the nuttiness of the malt and a milky finish.

The crushed malt balls provided a wonderful crunchy contrast to the velvety custard, and I think the more malt balls, the better. Normally I find custards to be very filling, but these pots de crème are not heavy at all and I could easily eat more than one. You do have to like malt to appreciate these, but if you like malt, you will love these custards.

Recipe: "Malted Milk Chocolate Pots de Crème" from Baked Elements: Our 10 Favorite Ingredients, by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito, recipe available here at Baked Sunday Mornings.