This vegan malt loaf heaven bears little resemblence to shop bought versions. If you were brought up on the super squidgy, super sweet, stick in your teeth commercial brands of malt loaf like Soreen this will be a revelation! If you’ve only ever tasted commercial brands like Soreen, this will taste somewhat different to that. It will have quite a different texture: but trust me – this is so much better. The flavor is amazing, and the texture whilst not as squidgy is actually more satisfying.
Why haven’t I tried making malt loaf before? No idea! But, my son Nikolas happened to mention that he’d eaten a whole loaf of Soreen brand malt loaf – and enjoyed it! So I thought RIGHT – that’s a challenge – time to do some research.
After a bit of digging around on the internet I found several interesting takes on malt loaf. As is often the case, by combining the best elements of the good ones, and adding a few tweaks to make it more healthy it was possible to turn some good malt loaf recipes into one AMAZING recipe. But you can be the judge of that if you try it.
I improved it massively IMHO by swapping out most of the white flour for a proportion of whole-wheat. I also added in some flax & chia seeds to boost omega 3’s and nutrition levels generally, plus by using aqua faba I gave this vegan malt loaf delight extra body and lift.
No more waffle – apart from to say that my son LOVED it! It’s now a firm family favourite.
Wikipedia has this to say on Malt Loaf
Many shops in Bath, UK, stock the ingredients in my recipes – here are some of them. Harvest Wholefoods, Walcot Street, Bath; or Newleaf Healthfoods in Moorland Road, Bath; or Grape Tree in Cheap Street, Bath. Bizarrely, the only place I could find malt extract was Holland & Barrat! Other places may stock it – but Sainsbury’s not a chance!
Fruity Vegan Malt Loaf
Equipment
- 1 2 lb loaf tin
- 1 Digital scales
- 1 electric whisk
- 1 medium sized bowl
- 1 large sized mixing bowl
- 1 silicone pastry brush
Ingredients
- 200 g raisins
- 100 g chopped pitted prunes
- 100 ml strong hot black tea hot black tea
- 160 g malt extract reserve 10g for the top
- 10 g maple syrup.
- 100 g dark brown sugar muscovado is best
- 60 ml unsweetened non-dairy milk oat milk is best
- 1 ½ teasp baking powder
- ½ teasp bicarbonate of soda
- ¼ teasp salt
- 115 g white self-raising flour
- 115 g wholemeal self-raising flour
- 50 g aqua faba chick pea water – if not using add extra 50ml of tea.
- 10 g flax seed finely milled if not using add extra 10g of flour.
- 10 g chia seed finely milled if not using add extra 10g of flour.
Instructions
- chop the dates into fairly small pieces - around 8 pieces per prune
- Put the raisins & chopped prunes in a medium sized bowl
- I found using 2 teabags and 135g of water, gave 100g of tea if you squeeze the tea bags to get all the tea out. BTW 1g of water based liquid is the same as 1ml - so weighing is the easiest method.
- Weigh the tea & oat milk and heat in the microwave until around 90°C
- pour over the hot tea, and heated milk (give it 30 to 40 sec in a microwave), stir well, cover & set aside to soak for 15 minutes or so.
- To a large mixing bowl, add the 2 flours, the milled seeds, salt, baking powder, bicarb of soda and mix well to break up any lumps.
- After this stage preheat the oven to 170°C convection/150°C fan.
- Brush an approx 20L x 10W x 10H cm or similar sized loaf tin (2lb) loaf tin with oil or margarine and line the bottom with a single piece of greaseproof paper cut to size.
- Whip the aqua faba with an electric whisk until very white and stiff – should be around 400ml in volume after whipping.
- When the dried fruit mix has soaked for 15 mins, add and stir in the 150g of malt extract and 100g of brown sugar until well combined.
- Pour the soaked fruit mixture along with the whipped aqua faba into the large bowl with the dry ingredients.
- Whisk well with an electric whisk. You can do it by hand, but it takes longer.
- Check the oven is up to temperature, then pour the batter into the bottom lined loaf tin and bake for approx 1 hour. Should be firm to the touch and a cake tester inserted into the centre comes out cleanly.
- Brush the hot loaf with the malt extract & maple syrup mixture. A silicone or pastry brush is best for this.
- Leave the malt loaf to cool completely in the tin before turning out.
- It’s best to slice it as you go – keep the end piece on the end to keep it moist. Store in an airtight container in a cool place (but not the refrigerator).
