Malt Loaf

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •900g loaf tin
• •Baking parchment
• •Small saucepan
• •Large mixing bowl
• •Pastry brush
• •Serrated knife

Instructions

1. 1

   Soak the fruit

   Put the sultanas in a bowl and pour the hot tea over them. Stir once and leave them alone for at least an hour, or better, overnight on the counter. The sultanas should plump up and drink most of the tea, going soft and dark and slightly sticky. Don't drain them. The tea that's left becomes part of the loaf.

   Use a proper black tea, brewed strong. Builders' tea, two bags in a small pot, left to stew. Earl Grey is too floral here. You want tannin and depth.
2. 2

   Prepare the tin and oven

   Heat the oven to 150C/130C fan. Line a 900g loaf tin with baking parchment, leaving an overhang on the long sides so you can lift the loaf out later. Malt loaf is sticky stuff, and a well-lined tin saves you a lot of swearing.

3. 3

   Warm the malt and treacle

   Spoon the malt extract and treacle into a small saucepan with the muscovado sugar. Warm them gently over a low heat, stirring, until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture is loose enough to pour. Don't let it boil. You're just coaxing it into something pourable. Take it off the heat and let it cool for a few minutes. It should be warm to the touch, not hot.

   Malt extract is the soul of this loaf. Find proper barley malt extract, the dark, syrupy kind sold in jars at health food shops or the home brew section. The thin commercial stuff sold for hot drinks won't give you the same depth.
4. 4

   Combine the wet ingredients

   Tip the soaked sultanas and any tea still in the bowl into a large mixing bowl. Pour in the warm malt and treacle mixture and stir to combine. It should look glossy and dark, the sort of brown that promises something. Add the beaten egg and stir it through.

5. 5

   Fold in the flour

   Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt over the bowl and fold everything together with a wooden spoon or a spatula. Stop the moment the flour disappears. The batter will be thick, dark, and a bit unwieldy, more like a wet pudding mix than a cake batter. That's right. Don't be tempted to loosen it.

6. 6

   Bake low and slow

   Scrape the batter into the lined tin and level the top with the back of a spoon. Bake on the middle shelf for an hour and fifteen minutes, give or take. The loaf is ready when the top has darkened and gone slightly cracked, and a skewer pushed into the centre comes out with a few moist crumbs clinging to it. Not wet batter. Sticky crumbs. The smell will be unmistakable: dark, malted, treacly, the kind that pulls people into the kitchen without them quite knowing why.

   If the top is browning too quickly in the last twenty minutes, lay a sheet of foil loosely over the tin. Low and slow is the whole point with malt loaf. Rushing it gives you a dry crumb instead of a sticky one.
7. 7

   Glaze and wrap

   While the loaf is still warm in the tin, brush the top generously with the extra tablespoon of malt extract. It will sink in and leave the surface glossy and tacky. Let the loaf cool completely in the tin, then lift it out using the parchment. Wrap it tightly in fresh parchment and then in foil, or in cling film if that's what you have. Now leave it. Two days, three if you can manage it. The loaf needs the rest as much as the bake.

8. 8

   Slice and butter

   When the time comes, unwrap and slice it thin with a serrated knife. Spread each slice thickly with cold salted butter. The butter against the dark, sticky crumb is the whole reason any of this matters. Make a pot of tea. Sit down. There are few better feelings than putting a buttered slice of malt loaf in front of someone on a grey afternoon.

Chef Tips

• •The malt extract is everything. Look for proper barley malt extract sold in dark glass jars, the sort that comes from the health food shop or the home brew section of a hardware store. The watery 'malt drink' powders won't get you anywhere near the right flavour.
• •Don't skip the wait. I know it's hard. But malt loaf eaten on the day it's baked is missing about half of itself. Wrap it tightly while still slightly warm and forget about it for two or three days. The transformation is the point.
• •Use cold salted butter, sliced thick rather than spread thin. The contrast between the cold, salty butter and the dense, sweet, sticky loaf is the whole reason this works. Don't reach for unsalted here. The salt earns its place.
• •If the loaf feels too sticky to slice cleanly, run the knife under hot water and dry it before each cut. Serrated, gentle pressure, slow strokes. Malt loaf doesn't like to be rushed at any stage.

Advance Preparation

• •Malt loaf is the definition of a make-ahead bake. Wrap tightly in parchment and foil and leave on the counter for at least 48 hours before slicing. It will be at its best between days two and five.
• •Wrapped well, it keeps for up to ten days at room temperature, getting stickier and more chewy as the days go on.
• •Freezes beautifully for up to three months. Slice before freezing and pull out individual slices as you want them. They defrost in about twenty minutes.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 100g)