The Vicar and I were married at St Andrew the Great in Cambridge. I’d been a member of the church for about eight years when we wed. The year before that the congregation had moved from the Round Church, a beautiful Norman building which had become far too small for the church to meet in. The move cost the church (as I recall) £1.8 million, as the new (to us) building needed extensive refurbishment, having been redundant for 25 years. The congregation gave generously, but there were a few more traditional fundraising efforts. One of these was a Round Church cookbook.
A recipe from the cookbook that I still use regularly is Rosemary Sennit’s malt loaf. It’s great for batch baking – I normally make three loaves at once and quick to put together. It’s egg free and therefore suitable for Asian Vegetarians & Vegans. It’s low fat aswell and I now prefer it to the Soreen option – it’s less strong and squidgy, but still delicious with butter. All brilliant reasons to use this simple and tasty recipe.
Ingredients
- 12oz self raising flour (1lb 8oz for double batch – you can double all the other ingredients easily yourself!)
- 1/2 tspn salt
- 2oz sugar
- 4oz raisins/sultanas or mix of them
- 2 tbspn malt extract (buy it in a health food shop eg Holland and Barrett)
- 1 tbspn black treacle
- 1/2 pt milk
Put the flour and salt in a bowl, adding the sugar and dried fruit and mixing together. Put the malt, treacle and milk into microwave jug. I heat it for 1-2 minutes on maximum heat and then mix it together. You can also do this in a pan over a low heat on the stove. Then pour the liquid into the dry ingredients & mix thoroughly. Pour everything into a well buttered 3lb loaf tin, or one lined with a reusable liner. Or if you double the batch you can make three smaller loaves in 2lb tins – this is what I normally do. Don’t use a paper liner as these will stick (I speak from traumatic experience).
Bake at 180ºC (Gas 4, Fan 170ºC) for 40-45mins or so until firm to touch, and a skewer comes out clean. I’ve found that the cooking time is about the same for both sizes of loaf. The original recipe said to cook a single quantity in a 2lb loaf tin in 75mins, so if you only have that tin size your deeper loaf will take longer – you might want to cover up towards the end of cooking to prevent the dried fruit from burning, though. Turn out and cool on a rack, or you can leave to cool in the tin. Slice and eat with butter (or low fat marg for the health conscious).
The Vicar's Wife 
Oh good – I was going to ask you or Rosemary for this recipe! Where do you get malt extract?
I should have mentioned that Ros. You have to go to a health food shop – Holland and Barrett stock it and they even have one of those in our tow-un!
That looks tasty – I wonder if I could make a gluten free version – oh how I have missed malt loaf…
Let us know if you try this successfully Verity – it’s fairly simple, so if you have a good gluten-free flour combo that works for other cakes, I would think it should work here.
*adds visit to Holland and Barrett for malt extract to the list of things to do tomorrow lunchtime* – it might be a week or two before I get a chance as I only have 75% of a kitchen at present, but most things seem to work ok with Dove’s Farm GF SR as long as a bit of extra liquid goes in.
Oh, yum. That brought back memories from when I lived around the corner from the Round Church when I was in seminary at Westcott House.
Yayyyy! Thank you! My middle son is addicted to this stuff and calls it “milk love”. He’ll be very pleased! X
Thank you for the recipe. I’m going to try and make it soon – I love malt loaf 🙂
This puts me in mind of a really simple recipe for an ‘All Bran’ Loaf, passed on to me by my Grandma, which I make a lot. (Again, no eggs involved).
Using a tea cup for measuring, put in a large bowl:
1 cup All-Bran
1 cup raisins/sultanas (whatever you have to hand)
1/2 to 3/4 of a cup of sugar (original recipe says 1 cup but I find that much is too sweet)
1 cup milk.
Mix together and leave to soak for 1 hour (or longer).
Mix in 1 cup sifted S.R. flour.
Put in a lined, greased 1 lb loaf tin and bake at 180ºC (Gas 4, Fan 170ºC) for 50 mins to 1 hour until risen and brown on top. Lovely with butter or just plain for those on a low fat diet.
Hmmm …..something must have gone wrong with mine – tastes great but looks and feels like a brick – could do some serious damage to any nearby windows. Still, it’s being eaten with relish (not literally!) by hungry wet walkers.
Hi Harriet. It’s a pretty heavy loaf, but not a total brick. Maybe a little baking powder would give it a wee lift next time?
We are currently enjoying your malt loaf sitting in Gibraltar – It travelled brilliantly and has kept us going between lunch and tapas! Thank you for an excellent recipe!
Amazon have all types of malt ,and all sizes ,delivered free .
I’ve just come across this recipe while looking for a gluten free malt loaf recipe and I noticed that (Some time ago now admittedly) someone was going to substitute the flour for GF flour. I felt I should point out that if anyone doesn’t know, malt extract also contains gluten so simply changing the flour wont be enough. Apparent a dark agave syrup is a good swap for the maly extract.