Sarepta gingerbread on a nardek

[And a little history about the German colony in the Volga region.]

Sarepta gingerbread on a nardek

Category: Confectionery

Kitchen: german

Ingredients
Durum wheat flour	300 g
Flour psh. 1st grade	300 g
Kefir	200 ml
Water	50 ml
Nardek (watermelon honey)	200 g
Any molasses	150 g
Powdered sugar	70 g
Soda	1/4 tsp (0.7g)
Baking powder	1/2 tsp (1.5g)
Ghee butter	100 g
SPICES:
Cinnamon	1.5 g
Carnation	0.7 g
Badian	0.8 g
Allspice	1 g
Cardamom	0.5 g

Cooking method

• I bring to your attention a very special gingerbread with a long history - it combines two specialties - German lebkuchen and watermelon honey of our Volga steppes.
• 
• Knead the dough from 400 g of flour, 150 ml of kefir and 50 ml of water. Adjust the flour to get a soft-soft bun. We will need the remaining flour in the next step.
• 
• Put the dough in any suitable dish, close it so that it does not dry out on top (I have special hats for bowls). And put the dough in the refrigerator for a week.
• 
• After ripening for a week, remove the dough. When comparing the photo, you can see how it is rounded.
• 
• Add a couple of tablespoons of kefir, spices
• 
• Melt the ghee, cool it a little so that it is not hot and add it to the dough too, and then finally it's time for nardek! I cook it myself in the watermelon season. Especially for these gingerbread.
• 
• First I mix the dough in a food processor until it is relatively homogeneous, but I advise you to do the final kneading on the board with a scraper using the method of chopping, not folding. Pour half of the remaining flour mixed with baking soda and baking powder on the table and put the dough in it. The last 100g of flour, without baking powder, let them wait, they won't need more.
• 
• We "chop" the dough with a scraper for one simple reason: we do not need developed gluten in the gingerbread, it is good in bread, and the gingerbread cookies become rubbery, difficult to bite off - that is, earlier this marriage was called "long dough".
• And I also introduced whole grain durum flour into the recipe I found for the same reasons - "how to reduce the likelihood of developing gluten." At the poultry market, we began to sell farm wheat of an old variety - the white turkey. By the way, this wheat also turned out to be in a sense a specialty of the Volga region and there is even some German trace in it (historians, however, argue about this). I liked it so much in bread that I began to add it to gingerbread. You can use semolina and even semolu.
• 
• The dough turns out to be soft, not dense, but keeping its shape. Redhead from nardek
• And we put it in the same dish, close it and put it in the cold again for a week.
• 
• So, in two weeks the dough is ready!
• 
• It does not look like ordinary long-ripening gingerbread, it plays as if yeast was added to it - in fact, it is, it turns out such a good sourdough, I have been experimenting with these gingerbread for 3 years, so I baked bread on a piece of this dough
• 
• Roll out the dough on a floured table into a layer the thickness of a little finger. I use a rolling pin with stop rings. Well rolled out to a thickness of 0.6 mm and 1 cm.
• 
• Cut into rectangles or using curly cutters.
• Put the blanks on baking paper on a baking sheet, bake at 160-180 * C until tender. Cooking depends on the size and thickness of your gingerbread. Mine were baked in 15 minutes. Cool the gingerbread cookies on a wire rack.
• 
• It is imperative to cover the gingerbread with sugar glaze (I do not have such a photo yet). To my taste, they are not very sweet, so the glaze is very appropriate here.
• The gingerbreads themselves are soft and very special in taste, aroma and texture.
• 

Time for preparing:

2 weeks and 1 hour

Cooking program:

oven

Note

And a little history about the German colony in the Volga region.

“The first and only colony of the fraternal union of Gernguter on the territory of Russia called Sarepta, founded at the confluence of the Sarpa and Volga rivers, made a significant contribution to the development of the economy of the Lower Volga region, to the overall growth and development of the light, processing and food industries in Russia.

The first missionaries, the Hernguthers, who arrived from Germany 240 years ago, were sadly amazed by this area: the steppe scorched by the sun was infinitely stretched before them - alas, this was not what they dreamed about when leaving their homeland. Therefore, they decided to name their new shelter Zarepta, because the local flavor reminded the religious brothers of the biblical Zarepta of Sidon, where the prophet Elijah was sent after three lean years. This name was consonant with the Sarpa River that once flowed here.

It was on the banks of this river that hardworking settlers began building their first houses. And who would have thought that enterprising Germans in less than 100 years would turn this piece of the steppe desert into a "green oasis", as many Russian and foreign travelers would later call the colony.

Accustomed to cleanliness and order, the Germans built beautiful streets buried in greenery, planting them with pyramidal poplars and acacia trees, in front of each house and in the intervals between them, they laid out gardens and flower beds, planted vineyards and melons, sowed cereals.

Old-timers said that around Sarepta the whole area was a flowering garden, a green vegetable garden with its own vineyards, berry bushes, even peach trees, constantly irrigated from the Sarpa River through the "chigiri" system. And then there are vast melons of watermelons, melons, pumpkins, fields of sorghum and tobacco. Sarepta watermelons were delivered to the royal table.

The first pastry chef in the colony-settlement was a pharmaceutical apprentice. The gingerbread was made according to old German recipes, and later a local product - nardek - was added to the ingredients. The gingerbread from Sarepta differed from other gingerbread cookies in a special technological process - the dough was aged, ripened in cellars for several weeks, and even months. "Missionary bread" - this was the name of the Sarepta gingerbread for its amazing quality - the ability not to stale for a long time. "

I confirm! I still have a couple of last year's, in a hermetically sealed box. Completely bite off, they lost a little bit in taste!
It was very interesting to learn the history of your region, the history of your country through the gingerbread recipe. I would be glad if you were also interested in joining the history, but you can taste a part of it, if you yourself decide to repeat the Nardek recipe and you can buy, however, it is expensive, but for the sake of experiment I would buy))

What a wonderful and unusual recipe! Thank you! Now I would also like to know the recipe for making nardek ...

Ira! How interesting it is to always read your recipes! Always informative, very original and beautifully executed! I want to run and cook right away!
Happy holidays!

[Irinaaa]

Irinaaa, I froze in mute amazement! Super!!!

[Irisha]

Irisha, a very curious recipe! However, you never have others
Thanks for the interesting acquaintance with such a gingerbread, I will definitely do it.

Hello gingerbread man!
Long time no see..

I love recipes with stories so much.

[Irishka]

Ay, yes, gingerbread, oh, yes, sarepta !!!

Irishka, !!!

I cook it myself in the watermelon season.

Will you teach ?!

I cooked watermelon honey, but very interesting get hold of hear your recipe too !!!

[Irina]

Irina, this is yeah !!! THANKS !!!

Ira! Delightful !!! Here's how to be now, you have to wait so long for the season of watermelons. Will you lay out the recipe for the nardek? (Thanks for the compliments).

[Nagira]

Nagira, and you can replace watermelon honey? : oops: For narsharab or doshab? Where to dig that honey, I did not meet in the store: girl_sad: I had to cook it myself, I forgot completely!

[Loksa]

Loksa,
Oksana, yes I missed the moment and did not complete the recipe for nardek until the end, when the watermelon season was in full swing
And about the replacement, I can say that it is the nardek that gives the same "Sarepta" flavor-taste to these gingerbread
There are too many acids in narsharab, and doshabs do not taste bright enough to not get lost in the dough ... so I'm not sure if the result will be pleasant ...
But about shops - it seems to me that it is quite possible to buy a nardek through the Internet, the question is that from Volgograd to wait for delivery ... And the price, but in general, the process is costly, not only in terms of fuel for long evaporation, here the output is several times less the original product ... So the price is justified, in my opinion, and "try" it is quite possible to buy a little

[Irina]

Irina, and is it better to take white molasses? I have a dark one, but it gives a strong color and it seems to me that it has a taste for expressions. Can I take invert syrup instead of molasses? Nardek found it, but a month ago it was possible to cook, now they are not the same watermelons, in any case.

[Oksana]

Oksana, Hurrah! I am glad that there are no problems with the drug addict And you can cook your own next season, I'll try to complete the recipe right the other day.

and it is better to take white molasses?

Of course, it's better not to add extra flavors, you probably have molasses? For several years now I have not been able to fully use a small jar, it has such a specific taste ... this is certainly a personal perception, but I use it quite a bit and only for color.
Molasses have preserving and water-retaining properties (i.e., the gingerbread stay soft and fresh longer), invert syrup has the same characteristics, so it is quite possible to use it.

[Irina]

Irina, tell me please, exactly a week to keep the first dough or less? Today I threw out the first kolobok - it went black dots on me, maybe I have something not high-quality there or the temperature is low, I don't know?
And the first kolobok came out very cool, I didn't read it carefully and put in all 400 grams of flour. Today I got a soft bun with 300 grams of flour!
Since I am making these gingerbread cookies for the first time, I preferred to throw them out, while there is little "good" there!

[Loksa]

Loksa,
Oksana, I always made according to the recipe and the dough never aroused fears and doubts, it was so pleasant to say in all organoleptic indicators ...
But - since 2009, I have been baking with sourdough, so a lot is done on the machine, including control over the temperature in the refrigerator: I know that lactic acid bacteria prevent the development of alien microflora in a mixture of "water-flour" (here we are responsible for this kefir) and these ICD need T at least 10 C. I have 10-12 C. on the top shelf.

It's a shame that someone started up in your test! and rightly so that I threw it out.
These "someone" could have gotten with any product or even with water (well, for example, we buy bottled water at a kiosk - in our 5L bottles, all sorts of byaks accumulate at the bottom of these containers, for a month before a new portion I rinse with soda, and after a month and a half I change to new ones; I know that many do not bother at all - only when the greenery appears at the bottom).
I use our local Alekseevskaya or Makfa flour, hard grain grinding myself (I buy it from private owners, so I dry it before grinding).
Yes, there is an ozonizer in the refrigerator, because there is also a hotbed there; although we close the container with the dough, but ...

Good luck with your experiments, Oksana, I keep my fists

Irina, is the recipe for nardek already laid out or not?

[Taman]

Taman,
Svetlana, although it is almost ready, but ... not yet, I had a birthday marathon here, and since the season of watermelons was already over, I was in no hurry. This week I will try

Take your time. Let's wait. We will be savvy by the summer) Happy birthday !!!