Borodinsky bread (russian: бородинский хлеб ''borodinskiy khleb'') or borodino bread is a dark brown

sourdough Sourdough or sourdough bread is a bread made by the fermentation of dough using wild lactobacillaceae and yeast. Lactic acid from fermentation imparts a sour taste and improves keeping qualities. History In the ''Encyclopedia of Food Microbio ...

rye bread Rye bread is a type of bread made with various proportions of flour from rye grain. It can be light or dark in color, depending on the type of flour used and the addition of coloring agents, and is typically denser than bread made from wheat f ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

n origin, traditionally sweetened with

molasses Molasses () is a viscous substance resulting from refining sugarcane or sugar beets into sugar. Molasses varies in the amount of sugar, method of extraction and age of the plant. Sugarcane molasses is primarily used to sweeten and flavour foods ...

and flavored with

coriander Coriander (;

and

caraway Caraway, also known as meridian fennel and Persian cumin (''Carum carvi''), is a biennial plant in the family Apiaceae, native to western Asia, Europe, and North Africa. Etymology The etymology of "caraway" is unclear. Caraway has been ...

seeds.

Preparation

Borodinsky bread has been traditionally made (with the definite recipe fixed by a ГОСТ 5309-50 standard) from a mixture of no less that 80% by weight of a

whole-grain A whole grain is a grain of any cereal and pseudocereal that contains the endosperm, cereal germ, germ, and bran, in contrast to refined grains, which retain only the endosperm. As part of a general healthy diet, consumption of whole grains is a ...

rye

flour Flour is a powder made by grinding raw grains, roots, beans, nuts, or seeds. Flours are used to make many different foods. Cereal flour, particularly wheat flour, is the main ingredient of bread, which is a staple food for many culture ...

with about 15% of a second-grade

wheat flour Wheat flour is a powder made from the grinding of wheat used for human consumption. Wheat varieties are called "soft" or "weak" if gluten content is low, and are called "hard" or "strong" if they have high gluten content. Hard flour, or ''bread ...

and about 5% of rye, or rarely, barley

malt Malt is germinated cereal grain that has been dried in a process known as " malting". The grain is made to germinate by soaking in water and is then halted from germinating further by drying with hot air. Malted grain is used to make beer, wh ...

, often leavened by a separately prepared starter culture made like a

choux pastry Choux pastry, or (), is a delicate pastry dough used in many pastries. Basic ingredients usually only include butter, water, flour and eggs (auxiliary ingredients and flavorings are also added). Instead of a raising agent, choux pastry employs ...

, by diluting the flour by a near-boiling (95-96 °C) water, and adding the yeast after cooling the mix to 65-67 °C, but then mostly inoculated by the previous batches of dough instead of the dry yeast. It is then sweetened and colored with

beet sugar A sugar beet is a plant whose root contains a high concentration of sucrose and which is grown commercially for sugar production. In plant breeding, it is known as the Altissima cultivar group of the common beet (''Beta vulgaris''). Together wit ...

, and flavored with salt and spices, of which the coriander seed is required, and caraway is optional, but still quite popular. Modern recipes are often 100% whole rye. A Borodinsky variety called ”supreme” consists of 100% rye (85% whole rye and 15% white rye flour) exists according to a pre-GOST recipe found in P.M. Plotnikov & M.F. Kolesnikov's 1940 book ''350 Varieties of Bread''.

Legend of origin

Several legends exist regarding the

etymology Etymology ()The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p. 633 "Etymology /ˌɛtɪˈmɒlədʒi/ the study of the class in words and the way their meanings have changed throughout time". is the study of the history of the Phonological chan ...

. The most popular one states that this bread traces its name to Margarita Tuchkova, a widow of

Napoleonic Wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...

general Alexander Tuchkov, who perished at

Battle of Borodino The Battle of Borodino (). took place near the village of Borodino on during Napoleon's invasion of Russia. The ' won the battle against the Imperial Russian Army but failed to gain a decisive victory and suffered tremendous losses. Napoleon ...

. His widow established a

convent A convent is a community of monks, nuns, religious brothers or, sisters or priests. Alternatively, ''convent'' means the building used by the community. The word is particularly used in the Catholic Church, Lutheran churches, and the Anglican ...

at a former battlefield, of which she eventually became an abbess, and its nuns had reportedly come up with the bread's recipe to serve at mourning events, thus, a dark, solemn color, and with round coriander seeds representing a deadly

grapeshot Grapeshot is a type of artillery round invented by a British Officer during the Napoleonic Wars. It was used mainly as an anti infantry round, but had other uses in naval combat. In artillery, a grapeshot is a type of ammunition that consists of ...

. Another legend that also ties it to the Battle of Borodino mentions a food trailer containing caraway and rye flour that got blasted by a cannon, forcing the locals to recover the ingredients and use them together for the first time. A third version states that composer and chemist

Alexander Borodin Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin ( rus, link=no, Александр Порфирьевич Бородин, Aleksandr Porfir’yevich Borodin , p=ɐlʲɪkˈsandr pɐrˈfʲi rʲjɪvʲɪtɕ bərɐˈdʲin, a=RU-Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin.ogg, ...

brought the idea for the bread to Moscow from Italy where he got interested in local baking. Since rye was not widely cultivated in Southern Europe, this is the most easily dismissed version. No sources support these legends, and the name of this bread most probably first appeared after the

October Revolution The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment ...

(1917), as no mention of this name was made before 1920. In fact, the modern recipe did not appear in print before 1933, first in internal memos of a Moscow baking plant. However, in the literature of breadbaking of the end of 19th century, a number of similar recipes exist, though caraway seeds were usually used instead of coriander.

References

External links

GOST 5309-50 standard document (in Russian)
Rye breads Russian cuisine Yeast breads Sourdough breads Molasses {{bread-stub

Preparation

Legend of origin

See also

References

External links