The story of the 1. Borodinsky bread.

That mesmerizing flavor of the freshly baked bread all over, in all the corners of our house, penetrating the nose and then leaving the house through an open window, exactly like the smoke of the incense my mom was making every single Sunday morning…

In Valeriu’s deepest memories the bread was something that was giving birth into a special wooden long kind of bowl, homekrafted by our anscestors. His grandmother Ileana, was starting the bread like a special ritual from the very early morning. Her bread was not the borodinsky one, because it was made out of the white strong , but it remained very well placed in Valeriu’s gastronomic memory anyway. When Val was a toddler he liked to play with that long wooden bowl, using it as a boat. Normally, his grandmother was keeping there the flour, and before making any bread she was emptying it and tidying it up. First she was making a levain, then the dough, and after a range of folders. So, by the end of the day, the bread was going inside the old type of the that was heated up only with wood. Guess who were the first degustators usually? Of course, Valeriu and his sister Ileana!

In my childhood the homekrafted bread was associated mostly with my mom’s tanned hands because of the long working hours in the garden.

Her hands were entering into the mix of flour and water, and that was a miracle for me to see how they appear back but already white because of the flour and the fresh dough… There was a period by the end of the 90’s when in my country they were still interrupting to provide the electricity in the freezing dark winter evenings. So I remember, in one of those evenings, we gathered all around my mom into the kitchen, where there was the onliest light made out of a recipient, some oil and a lacet. My mom gathered all the dry ingredients si could gather from the cupboard, and was mixing up the buckwheat, cornmeal flour, the last white flour and other weird ingredients I cannot name them properly in English, so finally we got several with a dark inside, the texture was like a clay, but the outside was nice and dry and so tasty… we were enjoying it a lot…

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Here at The wild stump, we’ve decided to reburn some of those memories. We found a large wooden bowl, and we’ve made a bread with some weird ingredients, and this bread si called Borodinsky. In our childhood and later we were enjoying this bread mostly with hering in brine, raw onion and boiled whole potatoes and sometimes pickles. It’s been a delish.

We’ll tell you later on what combi we’ve made here at The wild stump, but now, we’re ready to share with you the recipe of this amazing bread very popular in ex-USSR.

The recipe of the Borodinsky bread. The ingredients: 1. The levain 50 g starter 50 g spelt flour

50 ml water (room temp)

2.The malt mix (Zavarka in Russian)

30 g malt

250 ml hot water

75 g wholemeal flour

2 tbsp ground coriander seeds

3.The final dough The levain

The malt mix

125 g wholemeal flour

125 g spelt flour

1 tbsp salt

50 g honey (if you want this bread vegan, then add a glucose syrup or maple syrup)

50 ml hot water

Method of preparation: The first day: Before night we make the levain out of the ingredients from group 1. We close the glass jar as in the photo and leave it over night to ferment. We also make the malt mix with the ingredients from the group 2. First we mix the dry ingredients, then we add the hot water and mix with a spatula until all well combined. Cover it nicely and then put the bowl into a warm towel, and leave it over night to ferment.

The second day: We mix in a large bowl the honey, salt and the 50 ml of hot water from the group 3 of ingredients. Then we add the levain, mix well. After we add the malt mix. We make rotations with our spatula until all well combined. After, we add the . We finish to mix all with the spatula. Once everything combined, we cover the bowl with a clingfilm, and leave it to proof for approximatively 4 hours, until double in size. Meanwhile we prepare the mold. Please line it up with parchment, because this dough is very sticky.

Then with our hand wet we move the dough from the bowl into the mold, and press slightly all over, so it goes in all corners perfectly. With a wet spatula we shape up the top in order to make it nice, then we sprinkle the coriander seeds and press them with a finger, so they go half into the dough and stick there.

Our mold was 21 cm x 11cm.

We cover this mold with a clingfilm and leave it to proof for 2-3 hours, or until we see the top starts to make wee cracks.

We bake the dough first in the preheated oven at 230 degrees C, with steam, for 15 min. Then we take out the steam, and lower the temperature at 200 degrees C for another 40-45 min.

When the bread is ready take it out of the mold, and the baking parchment. Leave it to rest for 6 hours, either over night and then you can enjoy it <3