varda's blog

Lately I have been trying to make a passably authentic Russian Borodinsky Rye.    Fortunately Russian bakers are very generous.    Eliabel referred my last Borodinsky post to two Russian bread bloggers - Serghei and Masha.    They gave her some feedback which she very kindly translated for me.   I've tried to incorporate their advice into my latest bake.   A sticking point for those of us who would like to make authentic Borodinsky is the malt.   The original requires a fermented rye malt called red malt.    As far as I can tell this is not available in the United States.   Furthermore the process for making it is not well adapted to a home kitchen.   See for instance the discussion on dabrownman's post.   However, there are excellent rye malts available.    I was able to purchase three different malts at a brewing supply store in Cambridge, Massachusetts:   caramel, chocolate, and simple malted rye.    The chocolate and caramel are malted seeds which are then roasted to the desired color and flavor.    For the simple malted rye, the seeds are sprouted and then dried in a kiln.  

The advice I got through Eliabel was pretty straightforward.  

1.   Kvas is not a sufficiently concentrated source of rye malt for Borodinsky

2.   Molasses should go in the final dough rather than in the scald

3.  Eliabel also quoted a new book on Rye Zavarka breads which says that the red malt process retains some of the diastatic enzymes of the malt.  

For this bake I used the chocolate malted rye in the scald, and then added some of the simple rye malt to the final dough.   I also added the molasses to the final paste rather than the scald. 

Since in earlier Borodinsky attempts both Masha and Eliabel had mentioned there should be no cracking of the top, I modified a few things to see if I could avoid it.   First, I went way up on the hydration to 98%.   Second I took Howard's advice to dock the top, and Minioven's advice to take a spatula and separate the top of the loaf from the side of the pan prior to proofing.    This is the first of many attempts in which the top did not crack.    Otherwise I followed the three stage Auerman process as detailed by Andy.    I was again unable to cover the pan during the bake because I had added so much more water that the dough was too high.   It just ended up doming slightly.  

I cut in and tasted today after a 20 hour rest.

Since the chocolate malted rye had such a strong flavor, I should probably have used a bit more freshly ground coriander than I did.    I had cut back because my malt in previous attempts wasn't strong enough to balance the coriander flavor.   Other than that, I was pretty happy with the result.

Update:   Oh, one more thing I would change.   The scald was a little dry without the molasses and so hard to mix in with the rye sour.   Next time, instead of adding the extra 50g of water to the final dough, I would add more water to the scald.   

The other day I posted on preliminary miche attempts.   Due to problems with handling high hydration dough, the results were fairly disreputable.   The nice crumb did give me hope that I was on the right track.   Today I tried again, taking extra care not to fumble the dough.   While the dough throughout had the consistency of a water balloon I handled with care and got a better result.  This has a crispy crust and complex flavor which I don't really know how to describe, but it is definitely memorable.    It is made with 40% hand-sifted whole wheat flour, which I think I'm safe in describing as 90% extraction and the rest AP and Bread Flour.    For a simple formula - predominantly wheat - this bread achieves flavor that I usually can only coax out of multigrains and/or added ingredients.    I think it's all about the fermentation which is aided by the high hydration.  

I picked a difficult bread to try out a crescent moon score, but here it is:

Formula and method:

Leave starter overnight after second feed for 10 hours 45 minutes before using

Sift Whole Foods Whole Wheat flour to around 90% extraction

Autolyse flour and water for 45 minutes

Mix in salt and starter for 20 minutes at KA Speed 1, 20 minutes KA Speed 2

Dough should cohere into a loose ball by end of mix

Do a quick stretch and fold in bowl right after

BF for 3 hours

Stretch and fold in bowl

BF for 30 minutes

Stretch and fold on counter by pulling out in all directions flat (around 2.5 ft diameter)

and then folding into center

BF for 30 minutes

Remove from bowl and preshape into a loose ball

Rest 15 minutes

Shape into a ball by loosely turning corners into the center

Dough is very squashy like a water balloon

Place seam side up into a basket covered with tightly woven well-floured cotton cloth

Proof for 1 hour 40 minutes until dough starts to lose spring

Very gently turn dough onto peel with wheat bran under parchment paper

Slide onto stone

Bake with steam at 450F for 20 minutes, without steam for 35 minutes

Leave in oven for 5 minutes with door closed and heat off to finish

Other people's obsessions can be dull.   That's what the back button, the scroll button and the  block this user button are for.    But if you'll bear with me I have more to say about Borodinsky.    First, misunderstanding a suggestion by eliabel, I searched high and low and found a Russian grocery in Allston, MA which carries Kvas.   So I made the trek over there, and discovered that they also carried Borodinsky.    I bought a loaf, prepared in a sliced sandwich bread format, thinking how good could this be?    The answer - extremely good, extremely fresh, extremely coriandery.   I consider myself corrected.   Then it turns out that eliabel was not suggesting that I buy bottled Kvas, but instead Kvas concentrate.   But I had my Kvas, and by golly (remember, this is a well-mannered site) I was going to use it.  

The Big Sky Borodinsky

The Kvas - It tasted like bread.

Borodinsky with Kvas

Again I followed Andy's Feb 6, 2012 post, but with enough deviations that it warrants specifying formula and method directly.

Feed starter as above

At second feeding, make the scald

Leave overnight (15 minutes short of 10 hours)

Mix scald and starter

Ferment for just over 4 hours

Add final ingredients - mix by hand until blended

Ferment for 1 hour

Note that paste was very fluffy and aerated at this point

Spoon into greased bread pan.   Smooth down with wet spatula

Spray top with water and do so at intervals (Mini's suggestion)

Using spatula, separate top edge of bread from pan (Mini's suggestion)

Cover with Pullman top

Proof for 2 hours 5 minutes

Note -Very bubbly and starting to get holey on top

Oven preheated to 550F for 1 hour - steam pan for last 30 minutes of preheat

Put bread in oven and bring temperature back to 550  (Note I was too worried to cover it for first 15 minutes since it had risen so much during proof - I could have though)

Then reduce to 350F

Bake for 1 hour 15 min (without top for first 15 minutes with top for an hour)

then remove steam pan, remove bread from pan and bake for 30 minutes

Note that uncooked dough weight was 1275 so lost 52g in between steps

Tastewise, and despite the fact that I used canned Kvas rather than roasted rye malt, this was the best yet.   Absolutely delicious, with sort of a tart, tangy taste overlaid on the (freshly ground) coriander, malt, and molasses.   Addictively delicious.   Watch out.  

As for the miche, I have been wanting to follow David's SFBI miche for awhile now, but lacked what I thought was a suitable flour.   When push came to shove, though, my thinking and flour had deviated too much, so I'll just say that I was inspired by David's miches.

First the flour:  I don't seem to be able to find high extraction flour around here, short of milling it myself.   So I decided to sift.   My first try was unsuccessful and essentially I had whole wheat flour.   So I decided to buy a better sieve.  

That made a big difference.   For this miche, I started with 360g of whole wheat flour, generated 30g of bran, and 30g went missing.   So I can't calculate the extraction but it looked good.   Then I followed David in using only half high extraction.   In my case, I used KA Bread Flour as the other half.   

But before I could get to actually making a SFBI miche, I had to pursue a different line of thought.  I was somewhat startled the other day, when I made a Pain Au Levain with no Stretch and Fold whatsoever.   I am totally imprinted on Hamelman - he says Stretch and Fold, so I Stretch and Fold.    But my curiousity was piqued.     This time I decided to make up a very wet dough and develop it in the mixer for as long as it took and then again no Stretch and Fold.    So I made up an 83% hydration dough and mixed it in my humble Kitchen Aid - first at speed 1 for 35 minutes, and then at speed 2 for 10 minutes, with plenty of scrape downs along the way.   The dough came together quite nicely and strongly at the 45 minute mark.    Then I let it bulk ferment without touching it for  3.5 hours, and continued on my way.

Given the hazards of working with such wet dough, then I stumbled.   I proofed in a big ceramic bowl dusted with flour, but it was too big, so I had to basically drop the dough out of it onto the peel.   This compressed the bottom of the loaf a bit.   Worse yet, it snagged on the peel when I "slid" it into the oven.   To heck with the shape.   Despite all that, I think the crumb came out very nicely.   Undoubtedly it would have been quite different had I done a shorter mix, and a few stretch and folds.    But I kind of like this result.  

Word of the day: unseasonable.  I've been hearing that a lot lately.   What it means in practice is that after carefully checking the expected weather for the next few days, I decided it really was safe to bake in my WFO in March!    Last year my first bake was in July, but that was because I had to rebuild the oven first.    This year, the oven came through the winter more or less intact.    I pulled off the tarps and burned a bit of brush in there yesterday to warm it up.    Then today, fired it up and baked.   It was that simple.    Except it may take me awhile to get back into the routine.   This bread was totally overproofed since it took me forever to get a fire going and the weather is so warm that proofing was fast.    If I had baked it in that state in my gas oven, it would have just sunk like a stone.   Also, I didn't quite manage to get a steam pan into the oven.   Too much to keep track of.   Next time.  

This bread is a multigrain sourdough.   The wrinkle is that I threw in my leftover rye malt.   My son said it was delicious.    I thought it tasted vaguely similar to eating a beer.   Not sure why, since most beer isn't made with rye.    So actually pretty good, but strange.  

Here is my hobo oven ready for baking:

Update:   Formula and Method

Over the last few days I've been working on another Borodinsky.   I made some new rye malt, then refreshed rye sour, and scald flavored with the malt, molasses, and not quite as potent ground coriander as my last try.   I followed Andy's Feb 6 Borodinsky post, with the exception of some different timing and a little less coriander.   I cut into the loaf this morning, and felt, that maybe, just maybe I had made something close to a real Borodinsky loaf.  

Gave some to my son for breakfast - he ate it without any topping and without any complaint.   Then cut up some slices and took them to a morning meeting.   Since the people at the meeting were civilians (i.e., don't lie awake at night thinking about how to make such and such authentic Russian bread using the Auerman process) I thought they might not like it, and warned them it was very rye-y and coriandery and so forth.   But everyone ate it and most people seemed to genuinely enjoy it.    One woman mentioned that she thought it would be heavy and dense since it was mostly rye.   But it wasn't - instead very light in a rye sort of way.   

My only complaint is that the bread didn't quite hit the top of the pan, even though I thought I had the scaling (.69 of Andy's bake) perfect.   The bread obviously had some ovenspring, but rather than smoothly expanding to fill the inside of the pan, it seemed to rise as if it was uncovered and then cracked along the top.

I tried to get a very uniform paste in the pan by putting some in with a spoon and then smoothing and flattening it with a wet rubber spatula.  

My rye malt was much more successful this time.    I read through all the links people sent me - thank you.    I took Juergen's advice to raise the temperature while toasting the sprouting berries.    The color was much darker this time but I would call it ginger rather than red.    But I did get a much more powdery consistency when I ground the berries after toasting.   The potency this time around was much stronger, and I was a little afraid that I had burned it, since it had a very powerful aroma.   In retrospect I think it was fine.

Compare this with last time:

I also found what I thought was a very interesting discussion about making rye malt here.   See in particular Ron's comments in this thread.  

Baking Notes:

I always wait to use liquid rye sour until it is frothy on top.   In this case, I fed the sour in the afternoon.   Then again at night around six hours later.   Then left it overnight.   Ten hours later, it was frothy, so I combined it with the scald (made at the same time as the second sour feed) to make the sponge.   Then let ferment for 4 hours, per Andy's instructions.    I added final ingredients (rye flour, wheat flour, and salt)   and fermented for an hour.   Then spread into the pan (9 inch Pullman.)   Then proofed for only 1.5 hours rather than 3.   I used a wet finger to poke and test for elasticity, and just felt it was done earlier than expected.   Andy specifies a long bake at very low temperature with a very high temp start.   That didn't work with my schedule.   Instead I did the following.   Preheated oven to its highest temperature - 550F - for 40 minutes.   20 minutes into the preheat, I added a big pyrex lasagna pan full of water and with three towels in it.   At 40 minutes I added the loaf, and let the temperature come back up to 550F.    Then reduced heat to 350F.   At 1 hour 15 minutes into the bake, I removed the loaf from the pan, and removed the steam pan, and baked for 30 more minutes.    This time I managed to wait for around 20 hours before cutting.  

As for coriander, the first time I made this, I put in a very small amount of coriander that had been ground months before.    I think I underdid it.   Then second time, I put in freshly ground coriander at a little less than what Andy had specified.   The smell of the sponge with the coriander was overpowering to the point of being unpleasant and things didn't get any better with the bread, which failed for other reasons.   This time I scaled Andy's formula to .69 which would have called for 7g of coriander.   Instead I put in 5g of my supply of coriander which had been ground awhile ago.    This worked.   The flavor was fantastic and not overpowering.   Note that in Andy's Feb 6 post, he didn't put in the coriander until final, whereas in earlier posts, he put in with the scald.   Either way seems to be ok.  

I'm happy with this latest effort.   Thanks so much to Andy for his detailed and repeated posts on the subject.  

I have been making the same loaf of bread since Sunday and it's not even sourdough.   It is my first Pain de Mie, using the formula that Syd posted here.    Usually when people tell me what a lot of work it must be to make bread, I say it doesn't take much time or effort - mostly you let the dough do the work.   That does not hold for this bread.   Syd's instructions say to work this dough until it either has a gossamer windowpane, or your arms cramp up.   Since my arms never cramped up even though they were (and still are) extremely tired, I worked the dough with a few short breaks for an hour and 10 minutes.   No gym today.   In theory I could have used my Kitchen Aid stand mixer.   In practice it would probably have been the last time I used it.   

Since I have never made/bought/eaten this type of bread before I have no idea if it came out the way it should.  

I will say it's the most flavorful white bread I've ever tasted.  

A few baking notes:

The third day of the formula, or baking day, calls for "whole egg 140g."   I thought maybe ostrich egg?    I clicked through to the site that Syd referenced hoping for some clarification.  Unfortunately I can't read Chinese characters so no help there.   I ended up putting in 3 medium eggs which came to 156g.   Comparing my crumb to Syd's his seems to be a lot whiter, so that may have been incorrect.  

Update:   Syd's instructions call for heating the milk for the first mix (the water roux) but not for the next two.   I scalded for each of these because that's just what I do, but didn't know if it was necessary or not.  

During mixing, the dough stayed fragile until around 40 minutes.    At around 50 minutes it seemed to be getting stronger and silkier.   I went back to the Chinese site to see if they had any pictures of what it should look like.   They did.   I wasn't there yet so I kept going until an hour and ten minutes, at which point it was strong enough to twirl around like a pizza.   

Syd didn't mention steam, and I wasn't sure if that is called for in this type of bread.   Google translate was no help.   I finally decided to do steam for the first 15 minutes.   I baked one slightly smaller loaf in a pyrex bread pan (5 x 9 x 2.5 inches) and the second in my short Pullman (4 x 9 x 4).   Since I was reasonably sure that I wouldn't repeat the disaster of a few days ago where my attempt at a second Borodinsky went very wrong, I decided to cover the Pullman.   It didn't overflow.   It did reach the top.   My first success in covered Pullman baking.   I baked the Pyrex loaf at 356F (180C) for 35 minutes and the Pullman loaf for 40.   Could probably have baked each longer, but I didn't want to push it.   These aren't supposed to be crusty loaves after all, given that Pain de Mie seems to mean Crumb Bread.   (Sounds better in French.)  

Update:  I divided dough as 956g of dough into the Pullman and 820g into the Pyrex. 

So I have now baked an Asian Pain de Mie or a facsimile thereof.   Wonder how a French Pain de Mie would differ.   Just about everything I'm doing here is new to me.  I have certainly never hand-worked dough for over an hour before - maximum maybe 25 minutes.   Any suggestions for improvements are decidedly welcome.  

Oh, and incidentally this is either the 4th or 5th of Syd's formulas that I have tried, or around half of the number posted.   More please!  They are most interesting and excellent.

Bonus Rye Malt

In my efforts to make a second Borodinsky more authentic than the first, I took Janet's suggestion to make Rye Malt.  While I did find a few detailed suggestions on the web for how to do this, I still found it confusing, so I hope these documented steps will be helpful.

Step 1:   Find rye berries.   --- I found them at a food co-op in Cambridge MA which seemed to have bulk berries of many different varieties.  

Step 2:   Soak for 5 hours  --- I only soaked 60g worth because I didn't know what I was doing

Step 3:  Drain, rinse, and then keep moist while the berries sprout.   In the picture below they are just starting to sprout around 16 hours after soaking is complete.   I placed a wet paper towel on top of the berries, and had to remoisten it a few times.  

Step 4:  Put on a baking tray to dry out in the oven.    The picture at the top of the post where the berries are fully sprouted was taken 23 hours after the one above.

Step 5:   Dry out at very low heat for around 2 hours.   I kept the oven between 100F and 200F by acting as the oven thermostat. 

Step 6:   Grind them up.  I used a coffee grinder.

It's certainly not red.   I have no idea if it's Borodinsky appropriate.   But I will say that my Borodinsky didn't fail because of the malt.  

Tzitzel is to Borodinsky as Comfort Zone is to Total Lack of Comfort Zone.   But still, it's out there.   It has a cool name.   I like rye.   So why not.  I followed Andy's Borodinsky formula here as much as possible given different flours and malt.    To make myself feel more comfortable I made Tzitzel at the same time.   In making what is for me a very complex formula,  I felt similar to how I felt the first time I made Hamelman's Pain Au Levain - over my head.   Yesterday when I was making the rye sour for Tzitzel, a different rye sour for Borodinsky and my first time ever scald, I got everything built and put together.  Then I happened to glance at Andy's formula and realized that I had misread the amount of rye sour, by looking at the result of his first build instead of his second.  This necessitated a lengthy interaction with my spreadsheet, while I tried to figure out how to make the necessary adjustments.   Bottom line was I had enough sour for only 40% of the scald.   I'm glad I caught it in time before I mixed more than twice as much scald as required in with the sour.    I thought that I would be able to mix the scald and sour together last night to make the sponge before I went to bed, but I was waiting for the rye sour to froth - see Juergen's excellent picture here.   I know from having made Russian Rye that if you don't wait for the froth, you might as well just use the result for its cementatious properties, instead of wasting the energy to bake it.   So I let it go overnight, and then mixed the sour and scald in the morning.    Since I had a fairly small quantity of paste (this stuff is not dough)  relative to the pan, the result after baking for over an hour looked like a brick, and of course nothing like Andy's beautiful samples.   However, it did not taste like a brick.   To go back to my years of absorbing ad copy through the ether, I would say that this bread is BURSTING WITH FLAVOR (Juicy Fruit Gum - circa 1967).   No really, absolutely bursting with flavor.   I would hope to be able to make more photogenic loaves as time goes on, but for now, I'll be consoled by the taste.  I ate a piece of this with peanut butter for dinner.   Nothing else required. 

Crumb shots:   Tzitzel and Borodinsky

Tzitzel Rye Sour just before mixing the dough:

Borodinsky sponge just before mixing:

I used whole rye for the Borodinsky and for the small amount of wheat flour used Sir Lancelot high gluten because I ran out of KA Bread Flour while mixing up the Tzitzel.    I used malt syrup to replace Red Malt - best I could do for now.  I followed ITJB Old School Jewish Deli Rye as modified for Tzitzel (page 74.)  

Today I went back to Andy's Pain au Levain with Light Rye which I made last spring.  At the time I didn't know there was a difference between light rye and white rye.   I know it now, but I still have access only to White, so that's what I used again.    This bread acted like a balloon all through the preparation - I was very careful not to puncture it, and quite worried that it would deflate instead of rise in the oven, but it didn't.   Just spring and more spring. 

When it was time to shape, I didn't really - it's hard to shape a balloon -  just kind of pressed it a little and then folded it up and flipped into a lined basket.   I didn't think it would score, so I just ran my razor over some lines that had opened up during proof.   So not a tidy bread.  

After it came out of the oven, the sun was out and it was sort of pretend warm, so I took it outside to photograph.   When it hit the colder air, the loaf started singing like crazy.   I set it on the table and a hawk flew overhead.   I wasn't fast enough to catch it on the wing, but then it settled down in an oak to rest.

Then walked back through the garden, which is looking more like a garden in waiting this time of year.

My oven is waiting too it seems.   When will it be spring?

Didn't have to wait long to cut into the bread though, as it cooled quickly what with its trip outside.

When I was complaining the other day that I couldn't catch up with Andy, I didn't mean that I would never be a professional baker and turn out staggering numbers of authentic, healthy, artisan loaves, because of course I will never do those things.   I meant that I can't even catch up with trying to bake some of his formulas.   And he just keeps making the situation worse.    Back in November he posted wholemeal pain au levain.     I have been meaning to make it, but got distracted with mixed levains and other things and didn't get to it.   After my January croissant waistline debacle I decided that I have got to start baking more lean wholegrain breads, so that brought me back to Andy's formula.   Frankly I never expected such loft and lightness out of a 60% wholegrain bread.   But then I've never made a bread out of starter and soaker before which is what this is.  

True I was unable to follow the formula 100%.   I was a bit short of whole wheat flour so substituted in some whole rye to the soaker, and I didn't do the overnight retard immediately after the mix because it didn't fit into my schedule.   Short of those (hopefully not critical) deviations, I followed directions, and I'm glad I did.   This has a delicious crunchy, nutty flavor, and the crumb isn't the least bit gummy (ok that's how I tend to think of high percentage whole grain breads - it's my problem.)

Some baking notes: 

1. Andy's instructions call for mixing the starter, soaker, and additional flour.   Then retarding overnight.   Then Bulk Ferment for 3 hours which of course includes some warm up time.   I did not do the retard and was concerned at 1.5 hours into the bulk ferment that the dough would overferment.   I decided to end  after 2 hours, which seemed to work out.  

2. There was no call for additional water to be added to the final dough.   However, I was unable to mix the raw flour into the soaker, starter combo without a little bit of water.    Thus my hydration is 73% rather than Andy's 70%.    For a 73% hydration dough, it wasn't even slightly wet which I assume is attributable to the high percentage of whole grains.  

3. When I realized that I was short of whole wheat flour, I was scratching my head about what to add to the overnight soaker.   My husband strolled into the kitchen just as I reached this conundrum and suggested whole rye.  Despite my surprise (he's not a baker and doesn't like rye) I had to agree with his suggestion, as I thought the key point was having something that could stand up to an overnight soak without turning into gum.   Should I have done something else like whole spelt?

4.  I used King Arthur All Purpose to substitute for Carr's Special CC Flour and King Arthur Whole Wheat to substitute for Allinson's Strong Wholemeal. 

Formula and Instructions as Modified

Some time ago Franko did a great post on Tom Cat's Semolina Filone.   I pretended to make it but in fact I didn't because I used starter instead of poolish and whole durum instead of extra fancy.   Now following Karin's excellent no-discrimination policy I decided to cook from books lying under my nose, and what book could be greater (or more underutilized by  me) than Maggie Glezer's Artisan Baking.    This time I followed directions to the letter (see page 124.)  This bread is so good that someone should post on it every few months or so.   With this post, I've done my part.   

Bonus bread lessons:

1.  Different flour,  different bread.

2.  If you bake bread from a formula without following directions you haven't yet made that formula.