February 13, 2021 - 2:59am
My Borodinsky
Work in Progress
First step: make the brew piece. Russian red rye malt and process detailed here
Here's the result after 5.5hrs in the water bath at 65.5C. The water bath is a cheap sous-vide circulator in a saucepan of hot water.
To be continued....
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Hi, Lance:
Which "cheap" sous-vide circulator do you have?
Yippee
It's an Anova clone I got off Ebay a few years ago. I don't use it that much, but it seems to work well with good temperature control.
I'm sure you won't get the same brand, but they all look pretty similar. Proper Anovas are big bucks. Just browse Ebay or Amazon to see what you can find.
I don't think they're the "in" gadget they were a few years go, so there might be less choice than there was.
Lance
I've been wanting to try this with our programmable electric pressure cooker. They don't provide circulation, but might be a usable option:
Perhaps just run a trial to confirm that you are achieving the desired temperature.
Lance
Lots of choices for Borodinsky recipes - there must be hundreds! So it was time for a bit of research. Given the wonder that is internet language translation, it made sense to pick an authentic Russian recipe and livejournal.com is a great place to find one.
Some recipes have a bit of wheat flour in, others are 100% rye - the so-called Borodinsky Supreme or Premium. I was quite happy to choose a recipe with about 15% wheat in it.
Another consideration is spicing. Mariana has a very useful blog which details many facets of the Borodinsky ingredients used through the decades, including the spices. I went with ground coriander.
I ended up picking Sergey's recipe as this looked like a good 'un to me. This recipe also caught my eye (it's not on livejournal), and although I didn't use it, I found the pictures very useful.
For sweeteners, Sergey uses 28g maltose syrup and 42g sugar. I used 28g ND malt extract and 28g sugar.
My rye flour was 70% Mockmilled, with the coarsest bran removed with a kitchen sieve and 30% T997 roller milled.
Wheat was 50% homemade high extraction flour and 50% BF.
Next time: the bake!
Just a quick with note of anytime is reading this thread. The cited Borodinsky recipe in question is a classic from Plotnikov PM & Kolesnikov, MF. "350 varieties of bakery products," a great resource for pre-ghos formulas. Another classic source for these blogs.
My first Borodinsky bake is now complete. I pretty much followed the recipe, but I decided to play safe and go with a tin loaf instead of free form, especially as this was my first bake.
Everything went to plan, except the final proof was longer than specified at 1.25hrs. I waited till the loaf tin was nearly full and didn't really get any oven spring. I could probably have put a bit more dough in the tin.
I'm pretty pleased with the bake - the crumb seems to match the pictures - pretty dense, but soft, not heavy or chewy. Flavour is good - very aromatic and complex.
Note that to get a good finish on these loaves you need to brush the top with a white flour and water paste before baking, and after baking, brush with a cooked potato (or corn) starch paste and return to the oven for 5 minutes. This gives the nice glossy finish
A bit of minor crust lift, mainly at the corners, but no flying top!
Lance
You’re achieved a lovely shine to the crust with your applications of starches Lance. The crumb is beautiful, really great bake. It looks to be a very hearty loaf.
Benny
Just remembered you were baking this recently, and went back looking for your blog post.
Nice looking Borodinsky! Wonder why you got a bit of a split crust on top. Crumb looks good!
Nowadays Borodinsky always has some sprinkled coriander seeds on top, and they add a nice contrast, you might want to try doing that next time (in the recipe you were following it was baked as a hearth loaf, in that case you wouldn't do that).
I think I'll bake a Borodinsky end of next week, or soon anyway. Want to try the red rye malt.
Thanks Ilya - I would happily make the same recipe again - I'm not too fussed about the seeds, TBH.
I might try it free form next time, just out of interest. Which recipe are you thinking of using?
Lance
Very difficult choice, as you noted there are countless variations, and even many "official" ones, either pre-GOST recipes, or multiple GOST versions from different years. I was thinking to try this one, but I don't have a specific reason why - except it's a hearth recipe and I want to practice hearth loaf rye bread: https://youtu.be/ZQ_p7IihoZs
great choice? My friends liked it, too.
Yippee
Is it a CLAS recipe, Yippee?
Lance
Right - maybe seeing your comment there with the link to that thread was what pushed me to choose this recipe, actually! Forgot about that ?
I love the crust's mahogany color and the airy crumb. Congrats, Lance!
Yippee
Thanks Yippee and Benny; I think I might be baking a few more of these!
Lance