I love the taste of all things malted – Horlicks, Maltesers and Ovaltine but I only recently realised that a lot of people don’t know what Ovaltine is. Recently, I was in my local shop looking for Ovaltine to make these and asked the helpful (young) staff member did they have any – she had no idea what it was! When I explained it was like Horlicks (which she was familiar with) but with chocolate added she thought it sounded delicious.
Traditionally, Ovaltine Slice contains chopped cherries but as a modern alternative you can replace the glace cherries with Maltesers. This adds to the malty flavour and both versions are excellent! In addition, a lot of old traybake recipes (this was my mother’s) include raw egg to bind the ingredients together. I don’t like having raw eggs in anything so I have found that golden syrup is an excellent substitute.
The buttercream topping for these contains custard powder, any brand of custard powder is fine, it doesn’t matter if it’s the old fashioned one you add to milk or an instant one – I’ve tried both.
This is one of the easiest recipes to make. I used to teach cake decorating classes and always served refreshments, including my home baked traybakes. My youngest son, who was about 7 or 8 at the time always helped with the preparation and these were his speciality.
Chocolate Malt (Ovaltine) Slice with Maltesers
Equipment
- 1 18cm x 28cm rectangular traybake tin or 9" square shallow tin, greased and lined with non stick paper
Ingredients
Base
- 200 g digestive biscuits
- 115 g butter
- 115 g soft brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons golden syrup
- 3 tablespoons Ovaltine powder plus extra for sprinkling over the top
- 85 g desiccated coconut
- 85 g Maltesers or glace cherries
Icing
- 280 g icing sugar
- 115 g butter
- 2 tablespoons custard powder
- 2 tablespoons hot water
Instructions
- Crush the digestive biscuits into fine crumbs – place the biscuits in a plastic bag and roll with a rolling pin until finely crushed. If using glace cherries, chop each cherry in half.
- Place the butter, sugar, syrup and Ovaltine powder in a bowl and melt together – this can be done in the microwave on full power for 30 second bursts, stirring well each time. Alternatively, you can heat the bowl over a pan of simmering water.
- Stir in the crushed digestives and desiccated coconut then add the Maltesers/cherries. Press the mixture firmly into the base of the lined tin, it needs to be well compacted so the slice holds together when cut.
- To make the icing, soften the butter by heating in the microwave for a few seconds – it should be very soft but not melted – ideally the consistency of lightly whipped cream. Add the icing sugar, custard powder and hot water and beat until smooth. Spread this icing over the smooth base and sprinkle some additional Ovaltine powder on top.
- Chill until the icing is set then cut into squares.