"Hovis Bread" Recipe Help

[Bill Hogsett]

I was at a holiday party last night. The hostess's mother was from
London. She had left England in 1955 and moved here to the United
States and raised her family.

We started talking about bread and she mentioned Hovis bread. I said
I would try to make her a loaf before she went back to Florida.

I have done some looking on the net and have learned that Rank Hovis
is a large British flour company. Their web page is at
http://www.rankhovis.co.uk. The page has some recipes.

I think the lady was describing a bread made using the Hovis "granary
flour" which is described as:

"According to Rank Hovis, the process of making the malted wheat
flakes takes 10 days. First, the wheat must be ready to sprout. Then
it is steeped in water for two days, where it absorbs a lot of water
and begins to germinate and sprout. The wheat is removed from the
water and laid out on great tile floors for three days to continue
sprouting. As the wheat sprouts the starch in the grain starts
turning to maltose to feed the shoot. For the next two days, the
wheat is put into the "ruck," (we're not making this up), which means
it is piled up into deeper heaps on the floor. This increases the
heat generated by the germination, which can rise to 130°F (55°C) in
the middle of the ruck. The heat speeds up the germination process
and transforms the wheat's starch into maltose, which is the key to
obtaining the desired flavor.

The malted wheat grains are then rolled with heavy rollers to crack
them and transform them into flakes. After flaking, the wheat is
taken to a huge kiln where it is roasted for two days at 140°F to
160°F (60°C to 71°C). The roasting dries out the wheat, stops the
germination, and caramelizes the maltose. The grains are then blended
with brown flour to produce the unmistakable Granary malted brown
flour." http://www.ochef.com/746.htm

So, my question and request for help is really how can I duplicate
this Hovis' granary flour and make "Hovis Bread"?

I have found this recipe and think I can get the ingredients here in
the States:

GRANARY BREAD

1 cup malted wheat flakes
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon malt powder
1 tablespoon yeast
2 cups warm water
1/4 cup malt syrup

2 tablespoons canola oil
2 teaspoons salt
3 cups flour, bread

Combine the wheat flakes, flour, and yeast in a bowl. Warm the
water and malt syrup and add to the flour mixture. Stir well and
allow to ferment for 30-60 minutes.

Add the oil and salt and then add the bread flour one cupfull at
a time until a shaggy dough is formed. Allow to rest for 10-15
minutes, then turn out and knead for about 10 minutes or so. Place
in a greased bowl and allow to rise covered with plastic wrap until
doubled in volume, about 1 1/2 hours.

Turn out and punch down. Shape into two loaves and place in 8 1/2
inch bread pans. Allow to rise until the dough is about 3/4 risen.
Bake in a preheated oven at 350F for about 35 minutes. Remove from
pans and cool on a rack. http://www.recipecottage.com/breads-
yeast/granary.html

So, is that recipe close to the "Hovis bread" that someone from
London would recognize or do you have a better recipe?

Merry Christmas and Happy baking!

Bill Hogsett

-----------== Posted via Newsfeed.Com - Uncensored Usenet News ==----------
http://www.newsfeed.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
-----= Over 100,000 Newsgroups - Unlimited Fast Downloads - 19 Servers =-----

[Unknown]

Hey Bill,

Feliz Navidad !

I"ve never had this bread but your recipe is so interesting I"m
gonna give it a try.
You can get Malted Wheat flakes from King Arthur. (Link Below)
As for Mallt powder and syrup it would be a lot cheaper to get that
from a local Homebrew supply.

http://ww2.kingarthurflour.com/cgibin/htmlos.cgi/56233.3.12730002286680311934

[aji]

You have me worried. I think the recipe you have is for a malt loaf. Hovis
was (is) a brown bread; ie no malt in it at all. Suggest you look on
www.flourbin.co.uk website hwere they sell the flour used in Hovis bread.
come back to me if you have problems
AJI

"Bill Hogsett" <bhog...@adelphia.net> wrote in message
news:Xns92EE2CB7662A6bh...@128.242.171.114...

[Peter Flynn]

Bill Hogsett wrote:
> I was at a holiday party last night. The hostess's mother was from
> London. She had left England in 1955 and moved here to the United
> States and raised her family.
>
> We started talking about bread and she mentioned Hovis bread. I said
> I would try to make her a loaf before she went back to Florida.
>
> I have done some looking on the net and have learned that Rank Hovis
> is a large British flour company. Their web page is at
> http://www.rankhovis.co.uk. The page has some recipes.

Rank Hovis McDougall is what happened when the Rank Organisation (yes,
the ones with the big gong at the start of films) bought out McDougall's
Flour, who owned Hovis (or vice versa).

Hovis originally stood for (Latin) "Hominis Vis" ("strength of mankind")
and dates from the very early 1900s (AFAIK, perhaps earlier). It was
originally printed H superscript-o VIS with the superscript-o standing
on a swung dash, as commonly done in manuscript abbreviations (see
http://www.silmaril.ie/hovis.jpg which I faked up for the occasion)

Hovis is just brown bread. Quite good brown bread, but nothing special
except it's closer-grained (denser) than most supermarket brown breads
and slices of it stay in one piece when you butter them (toasted or not)
whereas many factory-made brown breads fall to bits under the knife. It
tastes very slightly malty (to my memory, having been raised in the UK)
but that may just be my brain :-) It certainly has a definite taste, as
opposed to supermarket brown breads which taste of wet blotting-paper.

"Granary flour" should be obtainable in any decent health-food store
(but it may be known by a different generic name in the USA). The
recipe you give certainly sounds close, but crush those wheat flakes:
Hovis is very fine-grained. Using both malt powder *and* malt syrup
sounds like overkill: it's not *that* malty. Personally I'd use butter
instead of oil: the British are very traditional and canola is unknown.

Good luck in your recreation. Maybe contact Tea and Sympathy in NYC
(http://www.teaandsympathynewyork.com/) which is a traditional British
tea-room: they may know where to get Hovis in the USA.

///Peter

[Mike O'Sullivan]

"Peter Flynn" <pe...@silmaril.ie> wrote in message
news:auo1c4$8uc4k$1...@ID-163087.news.dfncis.de...

> the British are very traditional and canola is unknown.
>

If that's corn oil, we've got plenty of it, as well as olive, sunflower,
rapeseed, poly-unsaturated and mono-unsaturated.

[Graham]

Canola oil is from rapeseed. The unattractive name was thought to be
somewhat insensitive, I suppose, and changed a few years ago by the
"politically correct" crowd.
Graham
"Mike O'Sullivan" <mi...@barnaby0.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:av21d1$mt6$1$8300...@news.demon.co.uk...

[Mike O'Sullivan]

"Graham" <doug...@shaw.ca> wrote in message
news:w30R9.341816$ka.87...@news1.calgary.shaw.ca...

> Canola oil is from rapeseed. The unattractive name was thought to be
> somewhat insensitive, I suppose, and changed a few years ago by the
> "politically correct" crowd.

Fascinating. I've heard of such!