A Malt Loaf Recipe For A Bread Maker

I’ve got a bit of a thing for malt extract. We used to eat it by the spoonful when I was little, and I always craved it when pregnant. Whenever life gets tough I buy a tin of malt extract and stir a spoonful into warm soy milk for a treat. So a malt loaf recipe for a bread maker leapt off the page of the instruction leaflet of my new machine.

Eureka! Slices of warm malt loaf with butter melting on top awaited me… I got straight into it.

NB I know some people call this a malt bread recipe for a bread maker… but here in Australia where I live and in Scotland where I grew up, we always, always call it a malt loaf.

Malt loaf in four photos!

1 cup lukewarm water (240ml)
1 tsp salt
2 tbs sunflower oil
1.5 tbs black treacle
2 tbs malt extract
3 cups plain strong white flour (432g)
1 tsp fast-action yeast

1. Put the ingredients into the bread maker pan in the order above.

2. Put pan into the bread maker. Set for about 2.5 hours. This recipe used the Speciality setting on the Morphy Richards.

3. Set and forget… then suddenly remember when the smell permeates the house.

4. Eat in huge slices drowned in butter.

5. Plan the exercise you will take to burn off all that energy you’ve just ingested.

Ah me, the smell of this freshly baked malt loaf was positively intoxicating

My aim of eating low carb dinners has been dealt a deadly blow by the arrival of this bread maker. Clearly, I need to try the delay function, set it to start at about 4am and then eat the yummy bread for breakfast.

If you’ve never felt the need to knead, but you love the idea of making fresh, crusty bread for the family, do try a bread maker.

I keep mine out on the bench top and am using it a lot. Thank god for a big kitchen for my big hungry family!

I just need to fling in the ingredients and then two to three hours later the most delicious smell of baking bread comes wafting through the house. We’ve often made a loaf just before dinner and then scoffed the whole loaf during the meal. Warm bread, cut into doorsteps, with heaps of butter… need I say more?

Look at this gorgeous loaf. This is a crusty white loaf, my four children absolutely love this one. We ripped this one into pieces and they dipped into into chicken and sweetcorn soup Here’s our family’s hard-working bread maker. This is a wholegrain load, I used a Laucke premix for this one. The bread is scrumptious.

Not that I didn’t have a few hiccups on the way.

I learned, the hard way, that it’s a great idea to read the manual carefully before flinging the ingredients into the bowl.

This is what happened when I put the flour in before the water. Oops. I didn’t measure the yeast carefully enough here, and must have put in too much, I think Another Laucke bread mix that we have loved.

Before this bread maker, I had made the odd loaf, usually using one of the bread mixes from the supermarket. So, starting out, I went back to those. This German Grain mix is really great, making dense bread with a fantastic nutty flavour.

The German Grain, a solid and very nutritious loaf

I have a quibble with Morphy Richards, the text in the instructions is too small. So I was constantly having to hunt around for my glasses when starting out. The good thing though is that when I found the glasses, the information given is comprehensive. So my advice, study that manual.

The basic method is just to measure all the ingredients carefully into the bowl, starting with the water, then flour then yeast. Then pop the bowl into the machine, choose your setting, set the timer if you like and press ‘go.’ So simple. And the bead is so good. I do think that my favourite \recipe for the bread maker is the malt loaf at the top of this article. Time to make another loaf….

Are you a bread maker?

A would-be bread maker?

Any top tips for the novice?

You might like this recipe for a simple spiced zucchini bread.

Find more simple family food recipes here.

And if you are interested in Australian family holidays, there are many described in detail on this website.