6/27/2023 0 Comments Bakers percentages![]() ![]() If you take the total percentage from the formula above, as Jeffrey Hamelman puts it in his book, “Bread,” (paraphrasing) that no matter what weight of dough we’re producing, there are 178.55 units that make up the dough. Here’s a simple way to visualize what that means: This is because it is a representation of the total dough. Thinking that there had to be a better way, I started doing some research and discovered that the total percentage in a formula is probably the most important number. So I’d go to 5.5kg and recalculate… It was tedious to say the least. If we use that formula above, this would get me close to 9kg. I’d start out with 5 kilos flour, then I’d apply the bakers percentages to get a weight. The way I’d calculate how much I’d need was kind of a crapshoot. For instance, to feed a 200-person luncheon, I’d have to make 8 loaves scaled out to 1200g apiece, which mean that I needed to produce 9.6kg of dough. At the time, I was starting to make bread to fulfill orders for luncheons and such. To be honest, I really didn’t pay too much attention to that figure until I started thinking about actual dough production and yields. So if we take the formula above, if I have 1000g of flour, then the amount of water I’ll need is 76% of that or, 760g. Nowadays, when I’m either recalling a recipe/formula, or even developing a new one, the percentages are all I think about.Īs was explained to me, the percentages in a formula represent the ingredient amounts relative to the flour, which is always at 100%. The first time I saw that, my immediate reaction was, “WTF?” And my heart raced with anxiety. Then when I started getting into artisan bread, recipes became formulas, showing the relative amounts of the ingredients expressed as percentages. ![]() When I first started baking bread 40 years ago, I riffed on a recipe that listed the exact amounts I’d need for each ingredient, like 4 cups of bread flour, etc.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |