Malted grain bread recipes
A bread made from mainly white flour mixed with a proportion of wholemeal flour, malt powder and malted grains. This bread is known variously as malted grain, multi-seed, seeded batch, and more frequently as Granary, which is a brand-name owned by Hovis PLC. Typical ingredients include wheat flour, water, salt, yeast, malted barley flour and grains.
Buyer's guide
As the term ‘Granary’ is a brand-name in relation to bread in the UK, other bakeries use different names, such as ‘malthouse’, or ‘malted grain’, and usually emphasise the inclusion of malt.
Malt is created when simple grains such as barley, rye or wheat are left to germinate and sprout. When this happens, the starch is converted into a simple sugar called maltose. If the grain is then dried and toasted, the maltose darkens in colour and takes on a rich, smoky caramel flavour that gives this bread its distinctive golden colour and slightly sweet aftertaste.
As the malt makes the crust darken very quickly in the oven, Granary breads are baked for a shorter time or at a lower temperature compared to most other breads, and their crumb retains a very moist soft texture.
