Young bakers stumped by humble malt loaf
Oldest Bake Off contestant prevails as task involving traditional teatime staple mystifies millennials
‘Of course all the under-35s said, “Do you know what it is, Maggie?” And, of course, yes I do!’
THE Great British Bake Off has flummoxed its contestants with obscure recipes over the years from the Spanische Windtorte to Dampfnudel, Kouignamann and the Sussex pond pudding.
This year, the bakers faced their most perplexing technical challenge of all: the malt loaf.
It may have been a teatime staple for generations, but most of the younger contestants had no idea how to make one. Prue Leith, the show’s judge, said: “This is a really old-fashioned recipe and those of you who are under 35 may never have heard of it.”
In their first technical challenge of the new series, the 12 bakers had to follow the recipe, expressing their bafflement along the way. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen malt extract before,” said Freya, the youngest contestant at 19.
Malt loaf was also unknown to some of the bakers who were raised outside the UK. Giuseppe, an Italian engineer now resident in Bristol, said: “I’m over 35, well over 35, so in theory I should know what this looks like. In reality, I don’t have a clue.”
Freya did a creditable job in the challenge by following the instructions to the letter, and managed to be placed second.
Perhaps it was no surprise, however, that the winner of the challenge was this year’s oldest contestant: Maggie, 70, a retired midwife from Poole in Dorset.
“As Prue said, the under-35s won’t know what it is. Of course all the under35s said, ‘Do you know what it is, Maggie?’ And, of course, yes I do!”
The inclusion of malt loaf in the programme may lead to a rush on supermarkets for the key ingredients: malt extract, black treacle and sultanas or raisins. Leith’s recipe also included prunes.
Other cooks who have produced malt loaf recipes include Nigel Slater, who said that he had rediscovered it after many years. “I have no idea when I stopped eating malt loaf; I only know that I did. Perhaps it was its resolutely unfashionable character that sent me looking elsewhere,” he wrote in the Observer Food Monthly.
Malt loaf is not the only traditional recipe to bemuse millennials. Last week, a survey of 24 to 35-year-olds, carried out by Aldi, found that 46 per cent of respondents thought that spotted dick was a made-up dish and 16 per cent believed toad in the hole was cooked with toad and potatoes.
One in five had never tried a Scotch egg and 18 per cent did not believe that it was a real foodstuff.
This is the 12th series of Bake Off,
which has become Channel 4’s mostwatched programme. Two years ago, the show was criticised for its youthful line-up of contestants, and this year the age range is broader.
Maggie was encouraged by the producers to set up Instagram and Facebook pages to deal with the public interest.
She joked to BBC Radio Solent, her local station: “The technical stuff is so much more complicated than baking anything at all. Any amount of French patisserie is not as complicated as trying to work social media.”
In one of her first Instagram posts, she modelled a T-shirt given to her by a friend, which bore the slogan: “Assuming I’m just an old lady was your first mistake.”
Channel 4
We went a little bit mad for The Great British Bake Off last year, didn’t we? Arriving as it did in the middle of lockdown, the show felt both joyous and slightly miraculous, put together under Covid restrictions and yet looking just like Bake Off always did. Last year’s series of Strictly Come Dancing had much the same effect.
A year on, and we’ve all calmed down a bit. Perhaps that’s why the opening episode of this year’s Bake Off, just like Saturday night’s Strictly launch, seemed… fine. Perfectly enjoyable. The presenters, the judges, the challenges – all were as you’d expect them to be. The bakers may have been pushing the limits with their creations, but the show remained safely within the confines of comfort TV.
The new contestants conform to type. There are the sweet ones, the laid-back ones, and the ones so competitive that they’ve probably got an Apprentice application in their back pocket. Bake Off always likes to make room for some eccentricity, which means bakers who are fun to watch for an hour, but you’d move if they started talking to you on the bus.
You’ll already have a favourite. I developed a soft spot for gentle Jurgen, who hails from the Black Forest and plays the trombone, and Tom, a man with such a relaxed attitude to the brief that he ignored the instruction to make a gravity-defying “illusion cake” and instead constructed a triple-tiered concert hall complete with cannon to represent Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. Alas, he didn’t make it past week one.
Two years ago, the programmemakers went for a young line-up in the mistaken belief that millennials (the Channel 4 target audience) only like watching their own age group. That series was widely regarded as a bit of a dud. This time, the bakers range from 19-year-old Freya, a vegan psychology student, to 70-year-old Maggie, a retired midwife. The fact that there are older bakers in the tent this year was underlined, as when Prue Leith asked everyone to make a malt loaf, adding that it was “a really old-fashioned recipe and those of you who are under 35 may never have heard of it”.
Maggie looks nothing like Prue, yet the show kept insisting they were doppelgangers. They do both have lovely diction, though. Or, as Noel Fielding would have it: “Loving listening to you and Prue chat. I’ve never felt more like a chimney sweep in all my life. It’s like a Dickens novel.”
The double act of Fielding and Matt Lucas hums along. Prue is her usual, magnificent self. Paul Hollywood is in alpha male mode and brings to mind my granny’s favourite observation: if he was chocolate, he’d eat himself. The show opened with a skit crying out to be sent viral on social media as the foursome dressed up to perform a rendition of the country track Achy Breaky Heart, with the lyrics adapted to “flaky pastry tart”.
In some years, the bakers have been of such a high standard from the start that it didn’t feel like a competition for amateurs. This series, some of the decorating was reassuringly unprofessional. Still, the smart money has to be on Crystelle and Giuseppe, whose creations looked beautiful.
The programme lands as Channel 4 is railing against government plans for privatisation, saying that a sell-off would put its unique output under threat. Funny, though, that we have a broadcaster which sells itself on innovation and risk-taking, yet its biggest hit is the TV equivalent of a nice custard cream. Bake Off is on at 8pm on Tuesdays on Channel 4