Malt loaf is a type of sweet leavened
bread
Bread is a baked food product made from water, flour, and often yeast. It is a staple food across the world, particularly in Europe and the Middle East. Throughout recorded history and around the world, it has been an important part of many cu ...
made with
malt extract
Malt is any cereal grain that has been made to germinate by soaking in water and then stopped from germinating further by drying with hot air, a process known as " malting".
Malted grain is used to make beer, whisky, malted milk, malt vinegar ...
as a primary ingredient. It has a chewy texture and often contains
raisins. It is usually eaten sliced and spread with
butter
Butter is a dairy product made from the fat and protein components of Churning (butter), churned cream. It is a semi-solid emulsion at room temperature, consisting of approximately 81% butterfat. It is used at room temperature as a spread (food ...
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 south-western China and nor ...
.
Malt flour is sometimes used to supplement the flavour.
History
In 1889, John Montgomerie of Scotland filed a US 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 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 tw ...
.
Commercial production
"
Soreen" () is a brand of malt loaf manufactured in the United Kingdom since the 1930s. The name is derived from Danish immigrant John Rahbak Sorenson, the inventor of the Soreen recipe and "Green", a business partner. In 2004,
Warburtons sold the brand to Inter Link Foods. In 2007, Soreen became part of McCambridge Group. In 2014, UK food group
Samworth Brothers 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 status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...
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 form of intellectual property that consists of a word, phrase, symbol, design, or a combination that identifies a Good (economics and accounting), product or Service (economics), service f ...
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 (food), Ambrosia, Bird's Custard, Angel Delight, Homepride cooking sauces, J. Lyons ...
companies, associated with its takeover of
Rank Hovis McDougall, 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 is a subregion#Europe, subregion of northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. It can sometimes also ...
. 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 Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a Religion, religious and Culture, cultural celebration among billions of people Observance of Christmas by coun ...
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 Aroma compound, fragrance in fin ...
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, biscuits, b ...
,
ginger
Ginger (''Zingiber officinale'') is a flowering plant whose rhizome, ginger root or ginger, is widely used as a spice and a folk medicine. It is an herbaceous perennial that grows annual pseudostems (false stems made of the rolled bases of l ...
,
cardamom
Cardamom (), sometimes cardamon or cardamum, is a spice made from the seeds of several plants in the genus (biology), genera ''Elettaria'' and ''Amomum'' in the family Zingiberaceae. Both genera are native to the Indian subcontinent and Indon ...
and
raisin
A raisin is a Dried fruit, 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, Republic of Ireland, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia and South Afri ...
s.
See also
*
Brown bread
*
Raisin bread
*
Tea loaf
*
List of breads
*
List of desserts
A dessert is typically the sweet Course (food), course that, after the entrée and main course, concludes a meal in the culture of many countries, particularly western world, Western culture. The course usually consists of sweet foods, but may ...
References
External links
{{Commonscat
Soreen websiteMcCambridge websitephoto of Harvo badge
British breads
Sweet breads
Loaf
A loaf (: loaves) is a (usually) rounded or oblong quantity of food, typically and originally of bread. It is common to bake bread in a rectangular bread pan or loaf pan because some kinds of bread dough tend to collapse and spread out during ...