Full question
Can I omit the cocoa powder from the icing in the Chocolate Malteser Cake recipe? I'd prefer a pale cream icing for decorative purposes but don't want to spoil the flavour.
Our answer
Nigella's Chocolate Malteser Cake (from FEAST) has a malted chocolate sponge that is sandwiched with a malted buttercream. Nigella uses Horlicks for the recipe, though you can use any malted milk powder that you like as long as it is the type that you add to hot milk, and not the "instant" type that you add boiling water to.
The buttercream icing only has 1 teaspoon of cocoa in it so we don't see any particular reason why you can't omit it. The buttercream will be a slightly lighter colour, though again as so little cocoa is used we don't think it will make that much difference. However, a small amount of cocoa can help to bring out the malt flavour, so instead we would suggest adding a few drops of vanilla extract to the buttercream. This should bring out the flavour of the malt without affecting the colour of the buttercream too much.
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