The 'Perfect' Malt Loaf?

Ten years ago, I made Dan Lepard's Malt Loaf and although it was tasty, it didn't bear much resemblance to the squidgy, moist Soreen Malt Loaves found in most supermarkets. 

Considering how long it is since I made that loaf, I can't help wondering why I haven't made one since, or why it's been on my mind so much, lately.

Anyway, putting those questions aside, I thought I'd try Felicity Cloake's 'Perfect' recipe this time, as she does a lot of the leg work by comparing, and trying, available recipes from reliable sources, and taking the best elements from each. The only unknown factor is whether her tastes coincide with mine, but in this case, they fortunately did.

I followed the recipe exactly (the suggested size of loaf tin is a standard 2lb tin) and it really couldn't have been simpler - mix the sugar, syrups, liquid (tea) and fruit together, leave to soak a while, then stir in the dry ingredients, transfer to the prepared loaf tin and bake. 

9 tablespoons of malt extract is 135mls, which was conveniently measured out by filling a 1/2 cup (125mls) to the point of overflowing. Lightly coating the measuring cup with oil ensured the malt extract flowed out easily too - no scraping out needed. 

I also followed the suggestion to wrap the cake in baking paper and leave for at least 2 days before cutting it, difficult though that was. Knowing cake is in the house is such a temptation, but it was worth the wait!

The loaf was everything I'd expected - strongly flavoured with malt, moist, sticky and stodgy. It wasn't quite as squidgy as a Soreen loaf, but that was actually a point in it's favour for me. Much as I like Soreen, I don't like how a slice can be squeezed into a gummy ball about half it's size.

So, was it 'perfect'? Very nearly!

My only slight criticism was that the flavours of the prunes and the malt blended so well together that the prunes were only detectable as a change in texture. I think next time I will try making the loaf with a proportion of sultanas too, so that the fruit adds more flavour contrast.

Malty Prune Flapjacks

In line with government recommendations, I'm trying to shop as infrequently as possible. Where I live, supermarket shopping is the least safe activity - I have plenty of open spaces and wide pavements when I go out for exercise, but I can't avoid needing food.

I'm fit and healthy, and don't yet fit any of the categories of people who should be taking extra precautions, so haven't tried to get any supermarket delivery slots, preferring to leave those for the more vulnerable members of the community. It's taken a while, but I've now figured out the quietest times to shop, so I take a list and shop as quickly as possible.

This is a big change for me, as I loved to browse the shelves, looking for bargains, new products or just what looked good that day. I used to go out almost every day and just buy a few bits and pieces, as I needed them. As I don't drive and have to carry my shopping a mile back home, what it also means is that, for the moment, I'm only buying the basic essentials, as fruit and vegetables and other necessary fresh foods are quite heavy when you're buying everything at once instead of spreading it out over several trips.

This is starting to impact on my baking (even though I'm not baking very frequently) - aside from what seems like a permanent lack of flour, there aren't always eggs or sugar available, and I'm running low on things like dried fruits and nuts. So wanting to bake means looking through the cupboard and seeing what's there before making decisions.

This time I found some 'out of date' prunes which still tasted OK and the scrapings from a jar of malt extract which could replace golden syrup if I made flapjacks. I'd been looking at malt loaf recipes but didn't have enough malt extract, so the idea of something malt-flavoured was still niggling away at me.

I followed my usual recipe, just substituting 50g of the golden syrup with malt extract, although I'd hoped to have enough malt extract to replace all the golden syrup.

First, melt together 160g butter, 50g malt extract, 20g golden syrup, and 100g caster sugar. This can be done in a saucepan, or in a large bowl in the microwave. Try not to let the mixture boil - it just needs to melt the butter completely. Then stir in 240g of porridge oats, 50g sultanas, 70g soft prunes (cut into pieces the same size as the sultanas) and 1 teaspoon of mixed spice. Mix thoroughly.

Tip this mixture into a 20cm square cake tin, lined with baking parchment. Level the mixture and press down firmly, then bake at 180C for 25 minutes. Cool for 5 minutes then mark into squares or bars while still hot. Leave to cool completely before removing from the tin.

I like flapjacks to be chewy, and these were gloriously chewy! More so than when I make the recipe with golden syrup. Additionally, the slight bitter edge to the malt extract cuts the sweetness a bit - you're not reducing the sugar you consume, but it tastes as if you are! The prunes worked well here too - they have a strong enough flavour to be tasted over the maltiness.

Malted Apple Cake

At first glance, this recipe, from Country Living, doesn't look much different to most apple cake recipes, but the addition of just two tablespoons of malt extract makes a huge difference to the character of the cake. The flavour becomes more complex and the sweetness has a bitter edge to it. In addition, using wholemeal flour and muscovado sugar makes the cake look dark and mysterious - you just know that it's going to taste different! If you have a favourite apple cake recipe, try replacing some of the sugar (say 50g) with malt extract to see for yourself.

I have to confess that I didn't use Bramley apples, so my cake was probably a little sweeter than the recipe intended, as eating apples are naturally sweeter than Bramleys, but it certainly wasn't oversweet. I wanted to use eating apples as Bramley pieces have a habit of collapsing when baked into cakes, and just leaving little holes to show where they've been. I've also got a lot of small apples from the trees in my garden, which are really only useful for cooking, so I've been searching for new recipes to use them up.

The recipe wasn't completely trustworthy - I needed to add more than 2 tablespoons of milk to get a soft enough batter, the cake needed more like 75 minutes in the oven rather than the 45-60 minutes suggested, and I only sliced one apple for the topping and still had too many slices to use them all - perhaps my idea of a thin slice is different to Country Living's cook! When it came to cutting the cake, I found out why the apples used on the top needed to be peeled! I left the peel on to be sure the slices held together, but then couldn't cut through the apple to get neat slices of cake.

I realised, when I checked the recipe while writing this post, that I had used plain wholemeal flour instead of self-raising. If I'd read the recipe properly during baking, I'd have added extra baking powder, which would have made the cake a little lighter, although I didn't think it was too heavy as it was!

The photo of the cake, still in it's tin, isn't very good; there was no natural light by the time the cake came out of the oven, but I still wanted to photograph the cake before it was cut.

I think this cake recipe would also make a good traybake for a Bonfire party, topped with neat rows of apple slices - it would bake faster in a shallower tin, but it's pretty easy to check during baking so as not to overbake.

Malted Chocolate Cake

for We Should Cocoa

The added ingredient for this month's We Should Cocoa event, hosted by Green Gourmet Giraffe, is malt. The idea of We Should Cocoa, which originated from Choclette at Tin and Thyme, is to pair chocolate, in some form, with the added ingredient or theme chosen by each month's host.

My first (and only!) idea was to use malted milk powder in a chocolate cake, so I bought an individual sachet of Horlicks; it was then that I found that most recipes used upwards of a quarter of a cup of malted milk powder - more than I had.

After a lot of searching, I found two versions of a Peyton and Byrne cake on two of the blogs I read regularly - Tin and Thyme (a fitting coincidence) and The More Than Occasional Baker - which only used a tablespoon of malted milk powder, so I used this as my starting point. The sachet of Horlicks I had looked as if it contained about 2 tablespoons, and I used 40g of malt extract in place of 40g of the dark muscovado sugar in the recipe, to increase the maltiness. In the absence of any milk chocolate in the storecupboard, I used white chocolate.

I followed the method in the recipe I found on The More Than Occasional Baker, as it was so unusual that I thought it must be nearest to the original. It might have been that my loaf tin was too short and deep, but I found the cake took 60 minutes to cook, rather than the 35-40 minutes suggested in the recipe (something Choclette at Tin and Thyme found too).

Ingredients
70g light muscovado sugar
70g dark muscovado sugar
40g malt extract
140g SR flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
32g (1 individual sachet) Horlicks malted milk powder
125g softened butter, in small pieces
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
50g plain chocolate, melted
110mls milk
75g white chocolate, chopped

Method
Preheat oven to 170C and line a 2lb loaf tin with baking parchment.
Combine the sugars, malt extract, flour, salt and malted milk powder in a large bowl.
Add the butter and beat with a hand-held mixer, on a slow speed, until evenly combined.
Add the egg and vanilla extract and beat until light and fluffy, then beat in the melted chocolate and milk until evenly combined.
Stir in the white chocolate pieces and transfer the batter to the baking tin.
Cook until a test probe comes out clean. The original recipe suggested 35-40 minutes, but my loaf took 60 minutes.
Cool in the tin for 15 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling.

I really liked the flavour combination of malt and chocolate, but this particular recipe really didn't work out very well. Although the loaf seemed to rise well in the oven, it sank a lot while cooling and became quite dense. It also dried out a bit around the edges, due to the longer cooking time.

Malt Loaf

This isn't like the soft sticky commercial malt loaf which UK readers may be familiar with, but it's just as tasty. It's a dense loaf which needs a lot of chewing, so a small slice is quite satisfying (particularly when spread with butter). Despite the huge amount of sugary substances in the recipe - golden syrup, treacle, malt extract and dried fruit - it does not taste excessively sweet.

This Malt Loaf recipe is an old one from Dan Lepard, which has been revived recently by some of his board members. I used chopped prunes, lard, and a smoked malted bread flour in place of the wholemeal flour in the recipe. My mistake, I think, was to choose a badly proportioned loaf tin, relative to how much the loaf rose, but that did mean I could cut small slices!