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Cereals and bread from Russia, Belarus, Latvia and the other Baltic countries

Scalded-rye sourdough breads (Borodinsky and Baltic rye breads)Бородинский хлеб

Rye flour and rye malt are scalded with near-boiling water and held warm while the malt enzymes turn starch into sugar. The sweet scald is soured by heat-loving lactic bacteria, then mixed into a rye dough that is proofed in tins and baked into a rye loaf.

Fully documentedCereals and bread24 h – 27 h

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceProportions from bakery studies and a Russian patent for an industrial Borodinsky; household recipes vary.
Rye flour[ru2259727][murniece2023]
Wheat flour, first gradeFirst-grade wheat flour is listed in the Borodinsky patent; Wikipedia gives about 15 % second-grade wheat flour for the GOST 5309-50 recipe[ru2259727][wp]
Fermented rye maltScalded with rye flour and water at 90–100 °C for Borodinsky[ru2259727]
Diastatic (unfermented) rye malt1 % of the flour weightIn a Latvian laboratory scald; a Belarusian study recommends 4.0–5.0 % of the flour weight[murniece2023][samuilenko2022]
Sugar, salt, coriander and baker's yeast[ru2259727]
Rye sourdough or a back-slopped portion of fermented scald[murniece2023]
Starterbackslop (fermented scald or rye sourdough); thermophilic lactic bacteria for the scald

Total time across the recorded steps: 24 h – 27 h

Start
Drag the bar or press Play
shapes, not to countLactic acid bacteriaYeasts90–100 °C

What changes: Near-boiling water is stirred into rye flour and malt, and the starch swells

Step 1 of 5
Scald rye flour and malt with hot water
Time
Not documented
Temperature
90–100 °C
Reported
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactic acid bacteria
Yeasts
L. delbrueckii
L. plantarum

Output: hot rye scald.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
starch gelatinises into a thick paste
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

scalding is reported to inhibit potentially harmful microbiota, but the saccharified scald still counted 4.9 log CFU/g lactic bacteria and 2.5 log CFU/g yeasts

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Rye flour and rye malt are scalded with near-boiling water and held warm while the malt enzymes turn starch into sugar. The sweet scald is soured by heat-loving lactic bacteria, then mixed into a rye dough that is proofed in tins and baked into a rye loaf. Made in 5 steps over 24 h – 27 h. The longest step, sour the scald with heat-loving lactic bacteria, takes 22 h (Murniece R 2023) and runs at 30–55 °C (Murniece R 2023). Lactobacillus delbrueckii, the dominant lactic bacterium in fermented rye scald and Lactiplantibacillus plantarum and baker's yeast in the later fermentation stage do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step22 hReported[murniece2023]Sour the scald with heat-loving lactic bacteria
Temperature30–55 °CReported[murniece2023]Sour the scald with heat-loving lactic bacteria
AciditypH 4.1Measured[murniece2023]Proof in tins and bake

What makes this one different

These breads add a scald to the rye dough. Hot water and malt turn part of the flour into a sweet paste, and heat-loving lactic bacteria sour it. A Latvian paper reports that scalded rye flour delays staling.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Borodinsky (Russia)Rye and some wheat flour, fermented rye malt, sugar and coriander.
  • Latvian wholegrain rye with fermented scaldRye bread made with a scald fermented by Lactobacillus delbrueckii, as studied in Latvia in 2023.
  • Danish rugbrødA dense, dark rye bread best known from Danish smørrebrød (open-faced sandwiches), made by similar sourdough techniques.
  • German pumpernickelTraditionally made from a sourdough starter; modern loaves often use commercial yeast, sometimes with citric or lactic acid to inactivate the amylases in rye flour.

Safety

In a Latvian study the fermented rye scald reached pH 3.61 after 24 h, and rye bread made with it had pH 4.09 against 5.15 without scald. The paper's introduction says scalding is reported to inhibit potentially harmful microbiota, but the scald was not sterile, because after saccharification it still counted 4.9 log CFU/g lactic bacteria and 2.5 log CFU/g yeasts. The introduction also says earlier research found less acrylamide and a longer shelf life in rye and barley breads made with scald. Ergot is a fungus that makes toxic alkaloids in cereal grain. The BfR says products made from rye (rye flour, wholemeal rye bread, rye bread and rolls) can have increased ergot alkaloid levels depending on the harvest, and that children aged six months to six years are a vulnerable group.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Wikipedia says the name Borodinsky is not found before 1920 and the modern recipe did not appear in print before 1933, in internal memos of a Moscow baking plant; the recipe was later fixed by the standard GOST 5309-50. Legends tie it to the Battle of Borodino and to a convent founded by Margarita Tuchkova, but Wikipedia notes that no sources support them. In 2005 Russian patents RU2259727 and RU2262234 described industrial Borodinsky pan bread.

  1. [murniece2023] Murniece R., Reidzane S., Galoburda R., Radenkovs V., Klava D. et al. 2023, The impact of fermented scald on rye and hull-less barley dough and bread structure formation, Foods 12:4475, doi:10.3390/foods12244475paper
  2. [samuilenko2022] Самуйленко Т.Д. 2022, Влияние процесса осахаривания на биотехнологические свойства термофильной заквашенной заварки (Effect of saccharification on the biotechnological properties of thermophilic fermented scald), Food Industry, Science and Technologies 15(2):11–20, doi:10.47612/2073-4794-2022-15-2(56)-11-20paper
  3. [ru2259727] Russian patent RU2259727, 2005, Pan bread "Novy Borodinsky" (abstract)other
  4. [ru2262234] Russian patent RU2262234, 2005, Method for producing pan bread "Borodinsky Novy" (abstract)other
  5. [s1] Wikipedia, Sourdough (Danish rugbrød, pumpernickel), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sourdoughwiki
  6. [wp] Wikipedia, Borodinsky bread (outline only)wiki
  7. [bfr-ergot] BfR (German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment), Questions and answers on ergot alkaloids in cereal productsgov