The flour and raising agents
Paul Hollywood uses a mixture of strong white and strong wholemeal flour with dried yeast; Dan Lepard a mixture of strong white and spelt (though he gives wholemeal as an alternative) plus baking powder; Gary Rhodes wholemeal self-raising; NZEllie, a contributor to the baking website thefreshloaf.com, plain self-raising; and Leiths Baking Bible plain white and baking powder.Advertisement
The sweetener
Malt extract, a byproduct of the brewing industry and a favoured elixir of postwar mothers, is mandatory. Hollywood sticks in a scanty three tablespoons to Leiths' whopping 115g of the stuff. I reckon the more the better; not only does malt make everything pleasingly sticky, but it should be the principal flavour here. That said, Rhodes uses no other sweetener, and I find his loaf too plain. Lepard's golden syrup is good, but Leiths' soft brown sugar and treacle gives the best flavour: a really well-rounded, rich sweetness which wins it fans despite the loaf's inauthentically cakey texture.Fat
Hollywood and Leiths use melted butter in their loaves, and Lepard goes for lard instead. Rhodes uses an egg, while NZEllie's recipe is fat-free, and remarkably good for it. Though it goes against every culinary principle I hold dear, given the amount of butter I'm planning to stick on top, this seems just about acceptable.Liquid
Hollywood uses water to moisten his dough, which explains why his loaf tastes so muscularly plain (though, that said, Soreen also contains a good deal of water). Lepard goes for dark ale or whisky - I try the former, which works well with the flavours of the malt, but makes things a bit too savoury for my liking. Leiths uses milk, which explains the soft, cakey texture, and Rhodes and NZEllie go for strong tea, which works well, and seems appropriate here, somehow. Tea and malt loaf go together like, well, beans and toast.Advertisement
Fruit and spice
Though I could have sworn blind that malt loaf was a fruit-free zone, I obviously haven't been paying attention, because it contains raisins, and in some quantity. Heresy it may be, but I find I prefer Lepard's chopped prunes with the other flavours - even Hollywood's sultanas seem juicier and more interesting, but use whatever dried fruit tickles your fancy. Whatever you go for, take a leaf from NZEllie's book and soak it in the tea for 15 minutes before use to plump it up deliciously.Lepard and Rhodes use mixed spice in their malt loaves. I love sweet spice, but I don't think it adds much here; I'd prefer to let the malt and dark, treacley sugars stand alone.Finish and maturing
Glazing it with honey (Hollywood) or malt extract (NZEllie) gives the top an attractive gloss, but the real difference comes with age. Difficult as it may be to resist, malt loaf gets better the longer you leave it; as Rhodes observes, "this is a loaf that needs to mature to reach the moist texture we all know exists". He and NZEllie counsel leaving it for three to four days, and certainly a couple of days, if it is tightly wrapped, will develop the loaf's characteristic stickiness. Restraint is everything. It's worth the wait, I promise.The perfect malt loaf
9 tbsp malt extract, plus a little extra to glaze2 tbsp treacle
50g soft brown sugar
150ml strong tea
200g dried prunes or other dried fruit
125g plain white flour
125g wholemeal flour
6 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
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Photo: Felicity Cloake's perfect malt loaf. Photographs: Felicity Cloake for the Guardian
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