Malted Easter Cookie Bars
This easy to make Easter treat is filled with milk chocolate Cadbury eggs, chopped biscoff cookies, chocolate chips, delicious malt powder, and topped with a decadent cream cheese frosting. These malted Easter cookie bars come together in a pinch if you are needing a weekend sweet treat so let’s hop to it!
Cadbury milk chocolate mini eggs were my inspiration for this recipe. How can I highlight this wonderfully crunchy, chocolate laden, once a year treat in all of its glory? Pairing with a malt powder, biscoff cookies, and luscious waves of silky creamy cheese icing felt like the right path to take.
I was left with a hunger for cream cheese frosting after making last weeks’ featured cookies, Carrot Cake Cookies-Stuffed. Don’t get me wrong, I feel the orange cream cheese filling inside of the carrot cake cookie was the perfect fit. But, I would be lying if I told you I didn’t have a smidge of sadness and longing for the silky beauty of cream cheese frosting.
What is it about this simple and delicious concoction of butter, cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla that is so addictingly good? Why does it make so many good desserts into extraordinary desserts? Simply put, can I live without it?
The answer is a resounding, NO. And Easter just could not be complete without a delicious cookie bar that has swaths of the heavenly cream cheese frosting layered on top. The perfect addition to a malted, Cadbury milk chocolate, cookie bar.
Need another Easter cookie recipe?? Check out this recipe for Peep Stuffed Easter Cookies.
Why I Love This Recipe
Flavor-The base of the cookie is a standard brown sugar cookie dough. I add Ovaltine malt powder and cocoa powder to enhance the flavor of the milk chocolate Cadbury eggs. The eggs are sweet and pair well with the warm cinnamon flavor of the biscoff cookie pieces. The cream cheese frosting on top creates a silky creamy layer that brings all of the underlying flavors together. An extra crunch of milk chocolate pieces on top add to the richness of these malted Easter cookie bars.
Texture-Lots of great texture in this cookie! The candy-coated Cadbury milk chocolate eggs add a wonderful candy-like crunch to the cookie bars both within the cookie bar as well as on top of the cream cheese frosting. The biscoff cookie pieces also add a crisp bite while the brown sugar malted cookie dough acts as a chewy and soft binder that very closely resembles cookie meets brownie in texture. The chocolate chips add another element of creamy chocolate in every bite. The cream cheese frosting on top is luscious and smooth with the slightest crust on top which adds more crunchy texture to this soft and chewy cookie.
Easter Cookies-These cookie bars are perfect for Easter Sunday! The cookie dough is very easy to put together, no chill time is required, and no worries about scooping cookie dough. Plus, the simple crushed chocolate decoration sprinkled on top is simple and whimsy with a pop of Easter perfect pastels.
Ingredients You Need:
Cream Cheese Frosting
- Cream Cheese-room temperature. This will make it easier to mix together with the powdered sugar.
- Powdered Sugar
- Vanilla Extract
- Salt- the slightest pinch for flavor.
Malted Cookie Bars
- Butter-melted
- Sugar
- Brown Sugar
- Salt
- Eggs
- Vanilla Extract
- Ovaltine Malt Powder- I grew up drinking this stuff and I always have it on hand for a weekend treat for my kids. Any instant malt powder should do in this recipe.
- Unsweetened Cocoa Powder-this will help deepen the milk chocolate malted flavor of the cookie bars.
- Cadbury Mini Milk Chocolate Eggs
- Semisweet & Milk Chocolate Chips- I like to use a combination of chocolate chips in my cookies. You can use whichever chocolate chips you prefer.
- Baking Soda
- Baking Powder
- Flour-I used King Arthur all-purpose flour for this recipe.
Making cookies for a crowd? You can easily double this recipe with great results! Use a 9×13 pan and increase bake time by 15-20 minutes.
Cream Cheese Frosting
You can make the cream cheese frosting first or you can make it while the cookie bars cool. Either way, this recipe takes less than 10 minutes to prepare. Store in fridge covered when not in use.
Combine room temperature cream cheese and butter in a bowl and beat with a hand held mixer on high for 3-5 minutes. I am looking for the mixture to be pale and very creamy. I recommend using a handheld mixer because the volume of the frosting is so small, a mixer might be too big to mix it well.
Next, I add the vanilla extract and salt get mixed into the cream cheese and butter mixture.
I add one cup of powdered sugar and slowly, with the mixer on low, begin to incorporate the powdered sugar into the butter. I increase the speed to high and mix for 1-2 minutes until it is light and fluffy again.
This step I will repeat for the next 2 cups of powdered sugar.
It’s important for the powdered sugar and butter to whip up after each addition of powdered sugar so the frosting is well mixed, creamy, and light as a feather.
Malted Easter Cookie Bars
These cookie bars come together very quickly. No chilling or scooping individual cookies is required and only one bowl is needed to make the dough.
First, I start by melting two sticks of butter in the microwave. I let the butter cool to room temperature for 5-10 minutes before adding the sugars.
Next, the granulated sugar and brown sugar are added and whisked. Whisk until the sugars are thoroughly combined with the butter.
Usually I add any dry ingredients sifted with the flour and baking soda but I switched things up today to see if anything scandalous would happen if I added the malt powder and cocoa with the eggs and vanilla. To my relief it was totally fine adding the powders to mix in with the butter, eggs, and sugar. I feel the malt powder had a chance to mix into the wet ingredients better than adding them sifted with the flour.
Whisk the eggs, malt powder, cocoa powder, and vanilla extract until no lumps of egg remains, the powders are mixed in, and the batter looks glossy.
Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt to the wet ingredients and stir until a soft dough forms.
I chop the package of biscoff cookies into roughly one-inch pieces. I keep them large because I know they will continue to shrink in size when folded into the dough.
Then, I take the Cadbury mini eggs and place them in a sealed plastic bag. Next, I place the bag between a folded kitchen towel on the counter. The kitchen towel is to ensure the bag doesn’t split open when you are crushing the chocolate eggs.
Using a rolling pin, I give the chocolates 5-10 good thwacks to break up the chocolates. They should be in roughly sized chunks, not too small but with the chocolate centers exposed.
I reserve a handful of the crushed chocolates to decorate the top of the frosted cookie bars. If you are measuring, I would say it’s about ¼ cup of crushed chocolates.
Next, I add the chopped biscoff cookies, crushed Cadbury eggs, and both types of chocolate chips to the dough and fold until they are mixed in evenly in the dough.
I scoop the dough into a parchment lined 8×8 baking dish smoothing the top as best as possible.
Bake the cookie bars in a 350*F preheated oven for 20-22 minutes. The top should be slightly set but the middle will still look undone. This is ok, the cookie bars will continue to bake and set up after it is removed from the oven.
I let the cookie bars cool on the counter for 30-45 minutes before I frost them. Frosting before the cookie bars are fully cooled will result in the frosting becoming soft and soupy. Not a terrible thing (still delicious) but very messy. I recommend letting the cookie bars cooling completely. If you want to speed up the cooling of the cookie bars, you can place the pan of cookie bars in the fridge for 20 minutes.
After the cookie bars have cooled, frost the top of them with all of the cream cheese icing. Smooth the top as best as you can but it doesn’t have to be perfect. There is something very comforting to me about cream cheese spread on top just using a spoon. The waves of cream cheese frosting that are inconsistent and imperfect on top of baked goods hits me in the nostalgic home baked goods feels.
The finishing touches are a sprinkle of the crushed Cadbury mini chocolate eggs on top. This adds extra crunch and pops of pastel pinks, robin blues, yellow, and white.
Cut the cookie bars into 16 squares using a large sharp knife. Start by cutting in half one direction then half in the other direction. Repeat with remaining sections until you have 16 pieces.
Enjoy these beautiful, malted Easter cookie bars and Happy Easter!
If you try this recipe and love it as much as I do, please tag, follow, and like @sunshinetxcookies on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and TikTok. New posts every Thursday so be sure to follow me for more delicious cookie recipes. Happy Baking!
Easter Malted Cookie Bars
Ingredients
- 2 sticks Butter unsalted.
- ¾ cup Brown Sugar
- ¼ cup Granulated Sugar
- 2 Eggs room temperature.
- 1½ tsp Vanilla Extract
- ¼ cup Ovaltine Malt Powder
- 2 tbsp Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
- ½ tsp Baking Powder
- ½ tsp Baking Soda
- 1 tsp Salt
- 2¼ cup Flour
- ¼ cup Semisweet Chocolate Chips
- ¼ cup Milk Chocolate Chips
- 8.08 oz Biscoff Cookies This is one sleeve of biscoff cookies.
- 10 oz Cadbury Milk Chocolate Mini Eggs also can use Easter M&Ms or comparable hard coated chocolate candy.
Cream Cheese Frosting
- ¼ cup Cream Cheese full fat, room temperature.
- 1 stick Butter room temperature.
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 3 cups Powdered Sugar
- pinch Salt
Instructions
Cream Cheese Frosting
- In a bowl with a handheld mixer, cream together butter and cream cheese until light and fluffy on high speed.
- Add pinch of salt and vanilla extract and mix until combined.
- Add one cup of powdered sugar. Mix on low until the sugar is incorporated into the butter mixture then turn the mixer on high and beat until whipped and fluffy, usually takes 2-3 minutes.
- Repeat with the remaining 2 cups of powdered sugar.
- Place cream cheese frosting, covered, in fridge until ready to frost cookie bars.
Malted Cookie Bars
- Melt butter in a microwave safe bowl until completely melted. Allow to cool to room temperature before next step.
- Add both types of sugars to the butter and whisk to combine.
- Next, add the eggs, salt, malt powder, cocoa powder, and vanilla extract and mix until thoroughly combined. There should be no traces of egg and the mixture should look smooth and glossy.
- Sift the flour, baking soda, and baking powder on top of the wet ingredients and mix until a soft dough forms.
- Chop the biscoff cookies into roughly one inch pieces.
- In a plastic bag add the Cadbury eggs, seal, drape in a dish cloth and crush the chocolate candies with a rolling pin or other heavy kitchen object on the counter. They should be crushed up roughly with pieces of chocolate still visible. Reserve a handful of crushed chocolates to sprinkle on top of the frosted cookie cake.
- Add the chopped biscoff cookies, chopped Cadbury chocolates, and both types of chocolate chips to the cookie dough and mix to combine.
- Line an 8x8 baking dish with parchment paper and scoop cookie dough inside.
- Bake at 350*F for 20-22 minutes. The cookie will be set on the top but look slightly under baked in the middle.
- Allow the cookie to cool for 30-45 minutes before frosting. You can speed this up by popping the cookie dish in the fridge for 20 minutes.
- After the cookie is cooled, layer the cream cheese icing on top and decorate with sprinkled crushed candy eggs.
- Slice the cookies into 16 bars with a sharp knife.
- Serve and Enjoy! Happy Easter!
