Soft Cookie Bars with Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

These gorgeous soft cookie bars are pebbled with Maltesers and are a cross between a cookie and a blondie. They are finished off with rich chocolate cream cheese frosting and decorated with yet more Maltesers. 

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Take my word for it, these soft cookie bars need no frosting. Heck, they are so good, you could eat them as naked as they moment they came out of the oven, and still swoon over how delicious they are.

The only reason mine have a frosting is because I had a little leftover from some crazily decadent cupcakes I made (recipe coming soon) and didn’t want it to go to waste. Hate waste, me. Especially when it is frosting. I mean, come on! Got to be finding a reason to use it up. Theoretically, I had Maltesers left over, too. Ah, I know. Now I am being silly. No such thing as a leftover Malteser, right? 

These soft cookie bars are halfway between a cookie and a blondie. I used gluten free flour which made them a little crumblier than a blondie but softer than a cookie. If that makes sense? You could easily use the same amount of spelt or regular flour instead. Whole Maltesers are thrown into the batter leaving pockets of chewy, malty, chocolate deliciousness.

The topping is a simple chocolate cream cheese frosting but as I said, you don’t need it, although it provides a beautiful, rich crown to these soft cookie bars.

Other Malteser recipes

Regular readers will know that I have a bit of a penchant for the chocolate, malty balls and they often feature in my baking. When I first started blogging several years ago, Maltesers weren’t available in the US; apparently, that’s all changed. No excuse now not to bag (hah!) yourself some if you’re over the pond. Here are some of my favourite recipes that include Maltesers:

• One layer chocolate fudge cake
• Oreo and fudge chocolate slice
• Spelt cookie cups with chocolate ganache
• Swedish sockerkaka (sugar cake)
• Nutella brownie cake

Print Pin

Malteser Soft Cookie Bars with Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

Course Snack

Cuisine British

Servings 9 cookie bars

Ingredients

Cookie Bars

• 100g (¼ cup + 3 tbsp) butter (melted)
• 100g (½ cup) brown sugar
• 1 egg (medium)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 120g gluten free flour blend (see note 1)
• ½ tsp baking powder
• 60g (2 oz) Maltesers (see note 2)

Frosting

• 100g (3½ oz) cream cheese
• 20g (3 tbsp) cocoa
• 75g (½ cup) icing / powdered sugar
• Maltesers (to decorate)

Instructions

Cookie bars:

• Pre-heat the oven to 175ºC (350ºF).
• Line an 8x8” (20cm x 20cm) pan with baking paper or foil.
• Melt the butter and set to one side until it cools a little.
• Then, beat in the sugar followed by the egg. Lastly, add the vanilla extract.
• Sift the flour and baking powder together and then stir into the wet ingredients, just until combined.
• Chop your Maltesers into small pieces and stir through the batter.
• Pour into the prepared pan and bake for around 18-20 minutes.
• Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely.

Frosting:

• Sift the icing (powdered) sugar and cocoa together and add to the cream cheese.
• Beat until nice and smooth.
• Spread over the top of the cookies.
• Cut into nine cookie bars, and then pop a few Maltesers on top, if you like. Enjoy!

Notes

 

I have converted grams to cups/ounces/tablespoons using online converters. Although I have no reason to believe they are inaccurate, please be aware that I have not made this recipe with imperial measurements

1. These cookie bars first appeared on my former blog, The Culinary Jumble. The original recipe was made with a gluten free flour blend, but you could use all-purpose or spelt instead (although I have not used anything other than GF flour).
2.  Maltesers are not gluten free. Omit these if you are following a gluten free diet.