Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Malt Balls for Mutts


Malt Balls ready for baking at 250 degrees overnight
After brewing a nice batch of Mike & Sherry's Piggish IPA from menuinprogress.com, there was a big ol' pile of soggy grains that I figured the dog might enjoy baked into cookies. They're very simple to make, and judging by the dog's reaction to me mixing up this batch, there's apparently an invisible ingredient in there: doggie crack. 

I cook in the kitchen with my "Little Chef" all the time and she usually ignores me- mind you, the dog eats raw meat and bones and offal as her actual diet, so she's usually unimpressed with whatever the people have going. Not this time. She promptly set down her pork leg and rammed into my legs while I opened the ziploc with the grain in it. Good thing I didn't put it in the compost or I suspect the whole thing would have been dug up.

This recipe made a lot of dough, so I froze half to thaw and bake up later. 

Malt Balls for Mutts Recipe

Ingredients
  • 8 c.  GRAINS left over from your brew (No hops!)
  • 4 c. All-purpose flour
  • 2 c. Unsalted smooth peanut butter
  • 4 large eggs


Equipment
  • Big mixing bowl
  • 2 or 4 sheet pans (a half batch of 1" balls makes 144, which fills 2 sheet pans)
  • Parchment or Silicone Baking Mats


Directions

Mix the ingredients well using your hands (the dough is a little stiff to work with an electric mixer or a spoon). It shouldn't really be sticky and should hold together easily when squeezed. Since your grains may be drier or wetter than the ones I used, feel free to add stock, water or whatever liquid you want (I had recently made a batch of yogurt and would have used the whey if I'd needed any, but I didn't) if you to get the dough to the right consistency.
Dough mixed and ready to portion

Use a teaspoon or a disher to form the dough into balls onto parchment or silicone lined baking sheets. There's not enough fat in this recipe for the cookies to spread at all, so whatever shape they go in as, that's the shape they're coming out as, so be sure to smooth any rough edges from the disher or teaspoon by rolling each portion in your hands to form the balls.
Be sure to smooth the rough edges by rolling the balls in your hands

144 malt balls ready for baking

Bake overnight in a 250 degree oven until the malt balls are completely dried out (moisture means mold) and store in an airtight container.
I can't look at the camera, my cookies might get away!



No comments:

Post a Comment