A Quick Question for the Bakers

Ari Meermans

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Monday is usually breadbaking day in the Meermans household and as so often happens my mind wanders while I'm baking. So my question to other AW bakers: Do you use malted milk powder in your baking, too? If so, in what baked goods do you use it—bread, muffins, pancakes, desserts, cookies—or are you like me in that you use it in everything?
 

Maryn

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I love the taste of malt and would like to add it to stuff, but I'm a scaredy-cat. What do you add it to and in what quantity? Do you use less of any other ingredient(s) to make up for it?

I think it would be awesome in many sweet baked goods--chocolate chip cookies and spice cake leap to mind--but I've never done it. Until recently, it was all but impossible to find in stores, but I have a newish jar 2/3 full.

Instruct me?

Maryn, who doesn't bake all that often
 

Ari Meermans

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I was wondering iffen I was gonna get any bites :greenie I really wanted to know if it was an old-fashioned thing or a regional thing, yanno?*

It doesn't produce a malt taste, per se. Adding the malted milk powder imparts a sweet-savory taste sort of like toasted nuts and in doing so, tempers the sweetness of baked desserts a bit. It also browns breads beautifully.

Yep, it's marvelous in chocolate chip cookies. just sayin'.

Malted milk powder doesn't affect how yeast or other ingredients work. It's also one of those "to your own taste" additions like salt & pepper. But you do have to make a substitution to keep the balance in your ingredients, so I'd suggest substituting 1-2 tablespoons of malted milk powder for 1-2 tablespoons of flour in your dessert baking to start with. If you use a bread machine, substitute malted milk powder for the dry milk in your recipe. In the hands-on bread baking I do, I substitute 1/4 cup malted milk powder for 1/4 cup flour.

*The thing about this and the whole reason for my original questions was basically another question: Have you noticed that your grandmother's and mother's recipes sometimes don't turn out the same when you make them? It could be they used different brands of ingredients like yeast or baking powder, or even flour; it could be a difference in the way they did it; and—here's the biggie—it could be they had little "secret" ingredients they didn't write down and didn't think to mention. My mom didn't have many written recipes and my grandmother had none at all. I had to learn by surreptitiously watching them, then casually asking questions later. And THAT'S how I learned about the malted milk powder.
:roll:
 
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mrsmig

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I didn't know about malted milk powder (and it just so happens I have some in the house). So I'm thinking I may have to try this the next time I bake. Thanks for the info!
 

Maryn

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And here I've been using it exclusively to top chocolate ice cream, which we have maybe once every six months. If that.

Come fall, I'll probably bake white bread with a swirl of apples and cinnamon in a little sugar. I bet the malt powder would be fabulous in the dough. Back in March, at the start of COVID, I bought all this flour and yeast and such, thinking we'd need to hole up all the way, and by god we were going to have bread in the house and never go hungry (thank you, Scarlett O'Hara), then that level of isolation proved unnecessary. We've been eating down the freezer and pantry, but the flour is untouched.

Maryn, who used to bake bread fairly often, but not in years
 

Ari Meermans

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Ever curious, I did a bit of spelunking down through Google (since nobuddy yawned and said, "Yeah, Ari, my family has been doing that forever, too."). It seems breadmaking has a long history as an adjunct to beer-making with bakers using the spent grains from making beer and using malted (germinated) barley in their breads. Apparently, home bakers got away from using those ingredients—haven't found info on exactly when or why YET but still delving—then started up again in the mid 1800s when someone discovered the new-on-the-market malted milk powder produced the same depth of flavor and lovely browning. Using the malted milk powder is now having a resurgence among home bakers and . . . get this . . . CIA-trained pastry chefs—there are oodles of blogs on the subject. Just goes to show when you think you know something almost no one else does or has been lost, yer almost always gonna be wrong.

:greenie

Ari, fascinated by the history of food prep
 

benbenberi

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In the 1970s we spent a month in Devon and loved the granary bread from the village baker so much that my mom spent years trying to recreate it at home. The secret ingredient turned out to be malt. And it was HARD to find bakers' malt for home use in the 1970s! Happily it's a lot more available now, in a lot of varieties. Here's a vendor blog with some descriptions.
 

Maryn

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I'll bite: Why does the CIA need bakers?

Oh, wait. The surest way to a man's heart...
 

Ari Meermans

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Oh, yer cute. You got me; I wasn't expecting that. :ROFL:

Culinary Institute of America
 
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Ari Meermans

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In the 1970s we spent a month in Devon and loved the granary bread from the village baker so much that my mom spent years trying to recreate it at home. The secret ingredient turned out to be malt. And it was HARD to find bakers' malt for home use in the 1970s! Happily it's a lot more available now, in a lot of varieties. Here's a vendor blog with some descriptions.

Thank you for the link! I bookmarked it and will be checking out some of those topic areas—"Articles and Advice", "Inspiration", and "Recipes" look particularly inviting.
 
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Maryn

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Cute and dumb! I literally thought you meant the other CIA. Culinary Institute never entered my purty li'l head.
 

Ari Meermans

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Oh, well then, nah, you're not dumb.* I should have been aware enough about what's going on around us to spell it out.

*You're still cute, tho'.