I could have sworn I over proofed this bread because I forgot it twice over the planned schedule. I normally do not leave my breads that much to raise between the adding of the starter and placing it in the fridge. But this one stayed for 6 and a half hours at a temperature of 27ºC. I thought it was a lost cause, but when I removed the Dutch oven lid, I had a such a beautiful surprise. That made me wonder.... was I under proofing my breads before? A question that would haunt me for the next bakes for sure. Then, I need to test this new discovery to find the best timing in correctly proofing my bread. Join me in this journey and you'll find out too...

If you are not from the est part of Europe, I am pretty sure you have no idea what borsh is. I know it from Romania where it is very popular between for housewives. My mother used to buy borsh from a neighbor and she was using it to sour the soups. My grandmother was making it herself. When I was a child, lemons were a luxury fruit to destroy it to sour your soup, so everybody was counting on this miraculous yellowish liquid called borsh.

When I moved in another country I found it very difficult to match the taste of my soup with the one I knew from home. Although the quality of the vegetables ripen by the sun in Romania is incomparable to the ones you find here in the supermarket, I was missing the secret ingredient: borsh. There was nowhere to buy this fantastic liquid. 

My mother in law even brought me some starter (not sourdough based but yeast based) from Romania but unfortunately I was not very experienced to know how to keep it. I had then to through it away as it got a strange smell. 

Two years ago I got stubborn and wanted to do my own starter, not in the way is traditionally made in Romania but from sourdough. I had this wonderful bacteria fed for my bread baking and it should have been a way to make borsh from it. The challenge was to find a recipe over the web with sourdough and there were not many listed. Finally I found one, applied it and it worked partially. Why partially? Because although I got a very nice borsh, it was not sour enough. I continued with it and used it for months even without the expected strong sourness. 

But recently, I was stubborn again. It must have been a way to get your borsh from sourdough starter that actually gets really sour. I found more recipes around but many of them had no sense. This bacteria is the key to achieve this sourness. Recipes that calls to pour boiling liquid over the sourdough starter were just crap as the idea is to keep this bacteria alive to do its job, meaning to get your liquid sour. But I found one that looked more interesting, respecting this principle. I adapted it a bit and practice it. In 24 hours I've got the borsh of my dreams!

But before presenting you the recipe, let me tell you that there is more to know about this sour liquid. It is not used just to sour soups, it has much more properties and usages. From childhood, I also remember that people were using it to wake up from dizziness caused by alcohol or to avoid the next day symptoms after a big drinking night :)

This sour liquid is rich in vitamins B, C, D, H, minerals, enzymes, chrome and other amazing elements. It is used in diets before lunches as a purifying agent. A lot of people are drinking it as such because of its probiotic properties to fortify the imune system, to improve the digestive system and so on. 

But look, I am not a doctor to confirm all these and I am sure there are many articles regarding the healthy benefits of the borsh. I am here to tell you about its taste and how to make a good one yourself.

I usually use it for soups and from time to time, to taste it in the morning before breakfast.

Here is my adapted recipe:

Pain de méteil was usually sold much cheaper as it was not reaching the qualities of the pure white wheat or pure rye bread. Little did they know back then that the healthiest bread was not made from white wheat flour.

With time, the word remained in the language and with the new wave of rediscovering our ancient flavors, it gets more and more popularity (maybe not in the sense of the crops mix but in the flour mix).

I saw a long time this braided bread and I had it on my wish list to make. When you say méteil, people now think of 50% wheat and 50% rye and I followed these proportions as well. Hydration of this bread can vary between 65% to 80% but keep in mind that due to the high content of rye, this bread is much denser. The gluten of the rye is very weak and does not mirror the properties of white strong wheat flour when it is kneaded/raised. The dough is rather a paste than a dough. You cannot stretch it properly and you can barely fold it. It deflates very easily when shaped in a more advance stage in proofing so better to handle the dough early in the fermentation.

You might notice a lot of disadvantages but wait... did I mention that for this bread I used only organic flours that make this bread very healthy? Did I mention that this bread combined the flavour of whole wheat with the one of rye? It might be denser but it is healthy and very tasty. The aroma of the rye is strong in this bread and despite the long known fame designating this bread as a low quality one,  what you get is a very rich bread.

Hard to describe the taste and aroma of this bread and as I do not sell the bread that I make, the only option for you it to make one yourself. ( unless you find a special boulangerie from where to buy it )

Here is the recipe...

I have the feeling that the plum becomes a forgotten fruit. During my childhood, my mother used to prepare this fruit in all sorts of ways. She was making compot, jam, cakes (ohhhh and I remember the famous plum dumplings... maybe I should try those ones as well) and we were eating them fresh as well many times. Nowadays, I do not see the same popularity for this fruit anymore and it is a real pity.

Because I miss so much seeing my parents during this pandemic times, a lot of memories are coming back to me and plum cakes is one of them. Before coming up with this recipe I consulted my mom to be sure that this is a similar recipe with the one she was doing when I was a child. In Romania, it is another type of plum that is most used. That type is smaller, bluer, sweeter and more oval. The one that I find here is big, round and red. Nevertheless, I tried my luck with this type in a very simple recipe.

Yes, it is the taste that I remember... these fruits leaves a lot of juice in the cake and make this simple cake a delicious dessert. Here it comes, my recipe for the plum cakes, exactly as I remember it from childhood.

This is the most efficient way to get rid of your discarded sourdough. It is quick and easy to make and it is only based on your discarded sourdough (meaning no extra flour is added). 

I keep my sourdough at room temperature and after 2 feeds daily at the end of the week I fill my jars with discarded sourdough in the fridge. I basically collect 120-150g of discarded sourdough every single day. By the end of the week I have a considerable amount and is out of question that I would through away such an amazing ingredient. 

Lately, I used this discarded sourdough for baking these waffles. I did this recipe multiplied by 2 or even 3 times, depending on the amount of discarded sourdough I have available in the fridge. But this is just the basic recipe and can be adapted to the quantity of the available sourdough.

The raise of the waffles is due to the baking powder and not due to the sourdough. The discarded sourdough has barely few activity in it when kept in the fridge. And more, this is discarded sourdough, meaning that the sourdough raised already at peak and the bacteria consumed the sugars from the starch already. You may try to bake waffles with fresh sourdough and without baking powder but my point here was to use the discarded sourdough, not to create sourdough especially for baking these waffles.

Every time I did this recipe, I saw the bottom of the plates very very quickly. They melt in your mouth and my children love them. The sugar in the composition is kept to minimum for healthy reasons, but if you like it more sweet, you are free to add more sugar.

Just give them a try if you have some discarded sourdough. If you do not have, just bare in mind that the sourdough (at 100% hydration) is 50% water and 50% flour and you can, at any time, replace sourdough with water and flour for this recipe.

The taste of these waffles is not sour as you might think when reading this recipe. The sourness disappears through the baking leaving you with a great taste and texture. 

Well, go to the kitchen, make this recipe, call the kids to eat them and let me know about their reactions :)

Swiss buttercream is a real pleasure to work with. It is smooth, silky, consistent and I cannot describe it better. Its secret is the big amount of butter that enters inside, It is the butter that makes the cream so silky. This specific cream requires that you cook the egg whites in advance like you do for meringues. You need to cook them before they will be mixed with butter.