Check out my very first instructional video on how to make rye starter from two malts.

While semi-refined rye flour plays important part in 1934 Borodinsky bread recipe, it is possible to make whole grain version with one slight modification. I would suggest you first read history post and then read original recipe post so you can understand the whole process. This post will only focus on how to make whole grain version and why I chose specific modifications.

Without further ado, let’s get into this!

This is the very first standardised (OST NK №1) and published Borodinsky bread recipe. It differs from modern variants in flavour, aromatics, presentation and some technical aspects, yet it is very similar to modern Borodinsky in many ways. All variants of the bread share the same dough development principles and all of them are mostly wholegrain rye.

First part of Borodinsky bread history can be found here and wholegrain variant of this recipe is here.

Russian Borodinsky rye bread has become a true icon of Russian food and culture and is well-known across the world. As with many iconic cultural artifacts, Borodinsky’s history is covered in myths and legends. This article opens a series dedicated to uncovering the history of the bread and how its recipe changed over the last century.

I’m not a historian and I can’t make a claim that this series will be 100% historically accurate, but I will try my best to present my knowledge about Borodinsky based on an online research I was doing recently.

This is probably the simplest sourdough rye bread recipe possible. It only has 3 ingredients: dark rye flour (type 1740, read more about rye flours in my previous post), water and salt. And it comes from a great book called 350 Varieties Of Bakery Products by Plotnikov and Kolesnikov published in 1940. It is the first recipe in the book and is used to describe several bread making techniques.

One important thing to note is that, as the name implies, this bread is sour. Very sour. If you’re not used to really sour rye breads, you might not like it. But this bread is a good starting point in learning how to bake rye.