Malt loaf is a type of sweet leavened
bread
Bread is a staple food prepared from a dough of flour (usually wheat) and water, usually by baking. Throughout recorded history and around the world, it has been an important part of many cultures' diet. It is one of the oldest human-made f ...
made with
malt
Malt is germinated cereal grain that has been dried in a process known as " malting". The grain is made to germinate by soaking in water and is then halted from germinating further by drying with hot air.
Malted grain is used to make beer, wh ...
extract as a primary ingredient. It has a chewy texture and often contains
raisins
A raisin is a dried grape. Raisins are produced in many regions of the world and may be eaten raw or used in cooking, baking, and brewing. In the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, and Australia, the word ''raisin'' is reserved for the da ...
. It is usually eaten sliced and spread with
butter
Butter is a dairy product made from the fat and protein components of churned cream. It is a semi-solid emulsion at room temperature, consisting of approximately 80% butterfat. It is used at room temperature as a spread, melted as a condiment ...
for
tea
Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by pouring hot or boiling water over cured or fresh leaves of ''Camellia sinensis'', an evergreen shrub native to East Asia which probably originated in the borderlands of southwestern China and north ...
.
Malt flour is sometimes used to supplement the flavour.
History
In 1889, John Montgomerie of Scotland filed a U.S. patent application titled "Making Malted Bread," which was granted in 1890. This patent asserted a prior patent existed in Great Britain dated 1886. Montgomerie claimed a novel
saccharification
In chemistry, saccharification is a term for denoting any chemical change wherein a monosaccharide molecule remains intact after becoming unbound from another saccharide.
For example, when a carbohydrate is broken into its component sugar molecul ...
process, which involved warming a portion of dough mixed with
diastatic malt extract to an appropriate
mash temperature and holding it for a time to allow the extract's enzymes to break down some of the starch into
maltose
}
Maltose ( or ), also known as maltobiose or malt sugar, is a disaccharide formed from two units of glucose joined with an α(1→4) bond. In the isomer isomaltose, the two glucose molecules are joined with an α(1→6) bond. Maltose is the two- ...
.
Commercial production
"
Soreen
Soreen is a brand of malt loaf and is owned by Mark and David Samworth, a food manufacturing company based in Leicestershire.
The creator of Soreen, John Rahbek Sorenson, arrived in England in 1920. He purchased a property in Manchester two yea ...
" () is a brand of malt loaf manufactured in the United Kingdom. The name is derived from "Sorensen", the name of the family that once owned the company, and "Green", a business partner. In 2004,
Warburtons
Warburtons is a British baking firm founded by Thomas Warburton in 1876 and based in Bolton, a town formerly in Lancashire, England, and now in Greater Manchester. For much of its history Warburtons only had bakeries in Lancashire and it remai ...
sold the brand to Inter Link Foods. In 2007, Soreen became part of McCambridge Group. In 2014, UK food group
Samworth Brothers
Samworth Brothers is a British food manufacturer which produces a range of chilled and ambient foods, both own-label and branded. It is the owner of Cornish pasty maker Ginsters and malt loaf manufacturer Soreen, and is also known as a maker o ...
bought the Soreen brand for an undisclosed sum.
"Harvo" was a brand of malt loaf which was made at the company's bakery at 257 Lawley Street,
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...
until the company went bankrupt in 1973. In some areas, the name Harvo or Harvo Loaf is still often used to describe malt loaf, regardless of the brand.
The Harvo
trademark
A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a type of intellectual property consisting of a recognizable sign, design, or expression that identifies products or services from a particular source and distinguishes them from others ...
was later held by one of the
Premier Foods
Premier Foods plc is a British food manufacturer headquartered in St Albans, Hertfordshire. The group owns many well-known brands, including Mr Kipling, Ambrosia, Bird's Custard, Angel Delight, Homepride cooking sauces, Lyons, Sharwood's, Loyd ...
companies, associated with its takeover of
Rank Hovis McDougall
RHM plc, formerly Rank Hovis McDougall, was a United Kingdom food business. The company owned numerous brands, particularly for flour, where its core business started, and for consumer food products. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange an ...
, RHBB (IP) Ltd; The Harvo trademark expired in 2006.
Variants in other countries
In December and during the holiday season, a similar type of bread called ''vörtbröd'' (literally “wort bread”) is popular in
Scandinavia
Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion#Europe, subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, ...
. The dough's water is supplied by
beer wort, adding sweetness and flavour to the bread. Several different spices and fruits commonly associated with
Christmas
Christmas is an annual festival commemorating Nativity of Jesus, the birth of Jesus, Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people Observance of Christmas by country, around t ...
are also added, e.g.,
clove
Cloves are the aromatic flower buds of a tree in the family Myrtaceae, ''Syzygium aromaticum'' (). They are native to the Maluku Islands (or Moluccas) in Indonesia, and are commonly used as a spice, flavoring or fragrance in consumer products, ...
s,
cinnamon
Cinnamon is a spice obtained from the inner bark of several tree species from the genus ''Cinnamomum''. Cinnamon is used mainly as an aromatic condiment and flavouring additive in a wide variety of cuisines, sweet and savoury dishes, breakfa ...
,
ginger
Ginger (''Zingiber officinale'') is a flowering plant whose rhizome, ginger root or ginger, is widely used as a spice
A spice is a seed, fruit, root, bark, or other plant substance primarily used for flavoring or coloring food. Spices ...
,
cardamom
Cardamom (), sometimes cardamon or cardamum, is a spice made from the seeds of several plants in the genera ''Elettaria'' and ''Amomum'' in the family Zingiberaceae. Both genera are native to the Indian subcontinent and Indonesia. They are rec ...
and
raisin
A raisin is a dried grape. Raisins are produced in many regions of the world and may be eaten raw or used in cooking, baking, and brewing. In the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, and Australia, the word ''raisin'' is reserved for the d ...
s.
Malt bread is one of many variants of baguettes sold in Russia. It is produced in local city bakeries.
See also
*
Brown bread
Brown bread is bread made with significant amounts of whole grain flour, usually wheat, and sometimes dark-coloured ingredients such as molasses or coffee. In Canada, Ireland and South Africa, it is whole wheat bread; in the Maritimes and Ne ...
*
Raisin bread
Raisin bread (also known as fruit toast in New Zealand) is a type of bread made with raisins and flavored with cinnamon. It is "usually a white flour or egg dough bread". Aside from white flour, raisin bread is also made with other flours, such a ...
*
Tea loaf
A tea loaf is an English bread, made with dried fruit and traditionally served sliced and spread with butter. It is seen as a very traditional cake and the tea loaf is available in cafes and other establishments that serve traditional afternoon ...
*
List of breads
This is a list of notable baked or steamed bread varieties. This list does not include cakes, pastries, or fried dough foods, which are listed in separate Wikipedia articles. It also does not list foods in which bread is an ''ingredient'' which i ...
*
List of desserts
A dessert is typically the sweet course that, after the entrée and main course, concludes a meal in the culture of many countries, particularly Western culture. The course usually consists of sweet foods, but may include other items. The word ...
References
External links
{{Commonscat
Soreen websiteMcCambridge websitephoto of Harvo badge
British breads
Sweet breads
Loaf
A loaf ( : loaves) is a (usually) rounded or oblong mass of food, typically and originally of bread. It is common to bake bread in a rectangular bread pan, also called a loaf pan, because some kinds of bread dough tend to collapse and spread ...