Chocolate Malted Milk Ball Cupcakes

On a whim, I made cupcakes with Whoppers to bring to a party! Not to be confused with the Burger King Whopper, Whoppers are milk chocolate malted milk balls made by the Hershey Company. They have a teeny bit less fat than some other chocolate candies and, hey, have calcium in them! Not that I am trying to say they are healthy…

I followed a recipe I like for a lighter chocolate cake, but I used only 2/3 of the cocoa it calls for. I put one cup of Whoppers in a zipped plastic baggy and went at them with a hammer. I added these crushed candies to the batter and baked as normal.

I was expecting the crushed Whoppers to really flavor these cakes, but the maltiness didn’t really come through very much. They just tasted, to me, like a very light chocolate cake. I was also thinking that the Whoppers might remain as chunks in the cake, but the candy mostly dissolved into the batter.

The consensus was that the cupcakes were good, but some had a hard time placing the flavor. “What spice is in these?” asked one party guest. (Um, only the finest ground Whopper seed?) Adding malted milk powder to the batter would have been a good idea, but I did not think of that until later!

I finished with a buttery, sugary vanilla buttercream that turned out especially well this time, according to one frequent Amélie-cupcake taster. I topped, of course, with a whole Whopper on each cupcake after frosting.