Ryazhenka

Let me tell you about ryazhenka, and why it tastes the way it does.

Ryazhenka is made from baked milk, milk that was held at a gentle heat for a long stretch before the cultures went in. That slow baking is what gives it its colour, a warm cream, almost caramel, and its soft, mellow sweetness. No sugar is added. The flavour comes from the milk itself, changed by heat, then rounded off by fermentation.

Choose it by the way it looks: an even, light tan colour, no grey tinge, no separation at the top. Smell it. It should carry that baked-milk, faintly caramel note, not a sharp, plain sour smell. The texture matters too: it should coat a spoon, not run off it.

Some people say ryazhenka is just kefir with food colouring. No! Kefir is made from plain milk and different cultures, and it never gets that caramel character, because it never saw that long, slow heat. Believe that misconception, and you will reach for kefir in a recipe that calls for ryazhenka, and your baking will come out without that deep, toasted-milk aroma and warm caramel note that make ryazhenka worth using in the first place.