Malt extract is the secret ingredient elevating flavor, texture in foods

Casual homebrewers and even plain-old beer geeks know that the beer-making process involves malting — that is, germinating — barley grains and then steeping those malted grains in water to extract the sugars, proteins and more that hungry yeasts devour during fermentation.

But what if you don’t shunt that sugar water to the fermentation tanks? What if you concentrate it into a syrup or dry it down to a powder? Then you’ve created malt extract, which is no mean feat.

In fact, Briess Malt & Ingredients Co., one of the world’s leading malt extract producers, goes so far as to call this multifunctional ingredient “the original starch- or grain-based sweetener,” long predating any of the acid- or enzymatically converted sugar syrups in use today.

When it comes to malt extract, however, sweetness is just the start.

Baker’s little helper

For example, because its reducing sugars participate in the Maillard reaction, malt extract serves as a source of rich flavor and browned color, even acting in some applications as a natural caramel color and molasses substitute.

In baking as in brewing, malt extract feeds hardworking yeast, assisting with dough rise in the process. Malt extract’s sugar content also renders it hygroscopic — meaning that it’s keen to grab water from the air — which lends it humectant properties that help cookies stay chewy and baked goods moist.

Moving to the other end of the texture spectrum, malt extract is essential to developing a crisp crust on other baked goods. As for the bagel, without malt extract it’s just round bread with a hole in the middle. That’s because malt extract caramelizes when added to the boiling water, contributing to the bagel’s unique malty flavor and browned crust, while also hastening cook time and yielding a chewy-but-crumbly finished product.

Breakfast is served

If all these “hacks” seem ancillary to the heavy lifts that baking stars like flour, sucrose and yeast perform, don’t write them off as unimportant. For while malt extract plays a supporting role in baking — working mainly to bolster the activity or efficiency of other ingredients — those behind-the-scenes functions deliver value.

The same holds for malt extract’s value in breakfast cereals, where it’s a formulation staple. It contributes a malty, sweet flavor you can’t get from sugar alone. It adds a golden tinge to flakes and puffs, and by creating a sugary shell on the cereal’s surface, it helps maintain texture to promote longer bowl life.

Healthy for whom?

“Malt extract was historically positioned as a ‘health’ ingredient from the 1950s into the 1980s, which is another reason it’s commonly used to sweeten and flavor breakfast cereal,” said Jack Lorimer, senior food scientist at Mattson, a Silicon Valley-based food and beverage insights, strategy, innovation and development firm.

Given that it’s mainly a source of simple sugars, it’s more nutritious for yeast than it is for us, according to Lorimer. “It’s not the type of ‘functional’ ingredient used for health benefits, and I’d be surprised to see health claims around it currently,” he said.

Malt shop favorite

Malted milk powder — a blend of malted barley and wheat extracts, milk, salt and baking soda — was also promoted as a “superfood” long before the advent of breakfast cereals, Lorimer added. But here, too, he thinks the ingredient has a sturdier leg to stand on in terms of its flavor benefits.

“Pastry chefs love it for adding complexity to desserts,” he explained. “It can give a wonderful umami punch to desserts like cookies or cakes, too. And I’d love to see malted milk shakes get more attention.”

Confectioners still use malted milk powder to put the “malted milk” in old-fashioned malted milk balls, and it adds sweetness, flavor and a creamy texture to packaged dairy desserts, icings and fillings. At 10-25% milk solids, it even boosts texture, flavor, sweetness, color and shelf life in baked goods.

Do’s and don’ts

With so many benefits and use cases in malt extract’s wheelhouse, Lorimer is hard-pressed to share any broad-based do’s and don’ts for working with it. “The most important thing is making sure you’re using the proper extract for your intended purpose,” he said.

If seeking a dry ingredient, a powdered extract is the better choice than a syrup, per Lorimer. In bakery applications where the extract’s enzyme activity is crucial, diastatic malt powder, which retains its active enzymes, fits the bill. “Remember, dry malt extract does not equal diastatic [malt powder] and malt powder does not equal malted milk powder,” he said.

Another caveat to keep in mind is that despite scoring clean label points — appearing on packages simply as “malt extract” or “malt syrup” — there’s no getting around the fact that malt products contain gluten.

Nevertheless, there’s a reason this jack-of-all-trades ingredient has found so much use beyond beer-brewing. “It’s delicious and it has functional properties that benefit a variety of applications,” Lorimer said.