The anxiety of the perfect loaf: the illusion of culinary precision • Hacker News Board

Re: The anxiety of the perfect loaf: the illusion of culinary precision

#11

Post by dredmorbius » Thu, Jun 25, 2026, 9:03 PM UTC

cogman10 wrote: post #3

> Viewed through this lens, the modern illusion of control shatters, but something much more liberating takes its place. The recipe is a suggestion. The rules of baking — baker’s percentages, hydration levels, the established ratio of flour-to-water-to-fat — are the underlying framework. This is the scaffolding. Look, the author isn't technically wrong. But also, I have to point out that the reason for all the contro…

Reproducibility requires more than just measuring ingredients, however, as other characteristics can greatly change results. Leaven viability, flour moisture content, relative humidity, ambient temperature, and accidents of a home-baker's process (did you get interrupted by a child / work / partner / household exigency during your dough prep or bake) all have pretty sharp impacts on results.

Precise reproducibility requires not just monitoring ingredients, but overall environment, dough response, and more.

Or ... you can roll with it as an amateur (both in the "nonprofessional" and "for the love of it" senses), recognise that every bake is its own experiment, measure what you can, but allow for variation. I've been baking bread for about six years now. Results vary, many look great, and all but a very few taste amazing, even where I go far out of nominal parameters.

Biggest goof to date was omitting salt from a batch. (Salting the finished product ... recovered mostly.) Otherwise I've survived odd assortments of flours, accelerated or extended prooving cycles, high- or low-temperature ovens, different cookware, and more. Bread is just really freaking resilient stuff, and so long as you're not planning on hitting the same spot every time, have fun with it, and learn, in the spirit of TFA.

Re: The anxiety of the perfect loaf: the illusion of culinary precision

#12

Post by dredmorbius » Thu, Jun 25, 2026, 9:06 PM UTC

nkrisc wrote: post #10

throwaway219450 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve always found King Arthur to be reliable? Their recipes are good and include metric, you can get the flour anywhere and they’re very proactive with support if you have questions about tweaking. Also good books. Good bread exists, it’s just not cheap like it is in Europe.

King Arthur recipes are good in my limited home baking experience. As long as you remain somewhat near to it, you’ll get something edible. I’ve found though for things like hydration or proofing times your environment is going to have a noticeable impact on that. King Arthur recipes are written with their products in mind, so if you’re using other flour make sure to check the protein content and that it matches! I’ve…

KA do make specific bread flours (high-gluten / high-protein), so that if you're used to those a GP or pastry flour will yield far less gluten development.

That said, I've used a cheap bleached white AP flour when that's all that's available and had ... quite good results. My preference is bread flours, and generally at least some whole wheat in the mix.

Re: The anxiety of the perfect loaf: the illusion of culinary precision

#13

Post by doublepg23 » Thu, Jun 25, 2026, 9:07 PM UTC

Insanity wrote: post #2

If there are these places on the internet the article mentions which perfect bread ingredients “to the gram”, someone should share that with American bakeries. It’s near impossible to find decent bread, compared to EU countries like France/Belgium/Germany. :(

I enjoy a local Pittsburgh bakery Mancini's. That's my benchmark for "good bread", I've never been to Europe though.

Re: The anxiety of the perfect loaf: the illusion of culinary precision

#14

Post by socalgal2 » Thu, Jun 25, 2026, 9:20 PM UTC

Insanity wrote: post #2

If there are these places on the internet the article mentions which perfect bread ingredients “to the gram”, someone should share that with American bakeries. It’s near impossible to find decent bread, compared to EU countries like France/Belgium/Germany. :(

not disagreeing, the US certainly doesn't have the variety of France/Belgium/Germany, and the average is certainly much worse.

But, there are local bakeries here and there and many of them seem to make pretty good breads? Maybe I don't know what you're specifically looking for though. I'm in LA at the moment and I can be both frustrated with the average but still find some good stuff.

Re: The anxiety of the perfect loaf: the illusion of culinary precision

#15

Post by wiredfool » Thu, Jun 25, 2026, 9:21 PM UTC

Insanity wrote: post #2

If there are these places on the internet the article mentions which perfect bread ingredients “to the gram”, someone should share that with American bakeries. It’s near impossible to find decent bread, compared to EU countries like France/Belgium/Germany. :(

Eh, I found the Seattle artisanal bakeries (Fremont, Grand Central) to be better than all but the best I’ve found in Europe.

Re: The anxiety of the perfect loaf: the illusion of culinary precision

#16

Post by wiredfool » Thu, Jun 25, 2026, 9:28 PM UTC

cogman10 wrote: post #3

> Viewed through this lens, the modern illusion of control shatters, but something much more liberating takes its place. The recipe is a suggestion. The rules of baking — baker’s percentages, hydration levels, the established ratio of flour-to-water-to-fat — are the underlying framework. This is the scaffolding. Look, the author isn't technically wrong. But also, I have to point out that the reason for all the contro…

The whole obsession about measuring giving exact hydration percentages is strange to me.

Assume you have 100g of flour at equilibrium 20% ambient humidity, and the same 100g of flour at 80% humidity.

I don’t know how different the effective moisture content would be, but measuring the weight of the flour to the gram seems like you’re including the moisture in the weight of the flour. Maybe one packs denser on a scoop. I don’t know. But I don’t necessarily think it’s more accurate.

On the other hand, it’s really easy to just pour in 540g of flour, mix in a shy tablespoon of salt, 280g of water, and a good glop of starter. Far easier than trying to get consistent scoops or measure to the meniscus in a liquid measured.

Re: The anxiety of the perfect loaf: the illusion of culinary precision

#17

Post by Finnucane » Thu, Jun 25, 2026, 9:31 PM UTC

cogman10 wrote: post #3

> Viewed through this lens, the modern illusion of control shatters, but something much more liberating takes its place. The recipe is a suggestion. The rules of baking — baker’s percentages, hydration levels, the established ratio of flour-to-water-to-fat — are the underlying framework. This is the scaffolding. Look, the author isn't technically wrong. But also, I have to point out that the reason for all the contro…

I worked at a culinary school for a while. In the bread kitchen they taught you the formula stuff, but also, to recognize what the dough would feel like, look like, even taste like, when it was right. They taught you how to adapt if the flour was a little drier today than yesterday, if the kitchen was a little more humid.

Re: The anxiety of the perfect loaf: the illusion of culinary precision

#18

Post by SubmarineClub » Thu, Jun 25, 2026, 10:08 PM UTC

socalgal2 wrote: post #14

Insanity wrote: post #2

If there are these places on the internet the article mentions which perfect bread ingredients “to the gram”, someone should share that with American bakeries. It’s near impossible to find decent bread, compared to EU countries like France/Belgium/Germany. :(

not disagreeing, the US certainly doesn't have the variety of France/Belgium/Germany, and the average is certainly much worse. But, there are local bakeries here and there and many of them seem to make pretty good breads? Maybe I don't know what you're specifically looking for though. I'm in LA at the moment and I can be both frustrated with the average but still find some good stuff.

> I’m in LA

Oh gee, who’d imagine you’d be able to find a decent baker in in LA?

Always hilarious how people in LA/NYC assume that obviously the experience of living in one of the largest cities in the country applies to the whole of the country.

Re: The anxiety of the perfect loaf: the illusion of culinary precision

#19

Post by hackingonempty » Thu, Jun 25, 2026, 10:26 PM UTC

Sure, a simple enriched bread like challah you can go by feel but you're going to have a lot more trouble succeeding with sourdough panettone without a tested recipe exactly because it is a living organism.

Of particular importance are the ratios of starter-flour-water when refreshing your culture (thrice daily! then bundling or floating for overnight storage...) It influences the ratio of Saccharomyces to Lactobacillus which has an effect on the pH of your dough after the first or second fermentation. If pH goes too low the gluten will dissolve and your dough will disintegrate when you try to knead in more ingredients.

One of the USA panettone masters, Roy Shvartzapel, insists you need a pH meter to be successful but after flailing around with one I found copying the refresh ratios of one of the Italian masters to do the trick. Unfortunately, refreshing is usually not part of published recipes!

Re: The anxiety of the perfect loaf: the illusion of culinary precision

#20

Post by derbOac » Thu, Jun 25, 2026, 10:26 PM UTC

wiredfool wrote: post #16

cogman10 wrote: post #3

> Viewed through this lens, the modern illusion of control shatters, but something much more liberating takes its place. The recipe is a suggestion. The rules of baking — baker’s percentages, hydration levels, the established ratio of flour-to-water-to-fat — are the underlying framework. This is the scaffolding. Look, the author isn't technically wrong. But also, I have to point out that the reason for all the contro…

The whole obsession about measuring giving exact hydration percentages is strange to me. Assume you have 100g of flour at equilibrium 20% ambient humidity, and the same 100g of flour at 80% humidity. I don’t know how different the effective moisture content would be, but measuring the weight of the flour to the gram seems like you’re including the moisture in the weight of the flour. Maybe one packs denser on a scoop…

I measure by mass when I bake, but I've always had the same questions as you (about humidity, for example). That was always the answer I got when discussing volume versus mass measurements — that volume can change due to all sorts of things — but it always seemed to me that mass could change for the same reasons.

I eventually decided mass measurements are most useful when the amount you need in mass is fairly small relative to the volume of the particles of the thing you're measuring. Measuring a small volume of nuts can be tricky, for example, because the nuts are different sizes and shapes, but mass is fairly consistent.

Measurement with baking in general is conducive to replicability assuming the same conditions are met. That is, that you're in the same bakery, with the same oven, same flour, and so forth. It becomes less reliable as you start changing variables.

This is pretty obvious even with flour: two bread flours can absorb really different amounts of water, so you almost have to be aware of texture and so forth. What you want to achieve in a recipe is a certain outcome, in dough characteristics and final loaf. How you get there can be informed by a bunch of things but is never guaranteed unless everything is the same every time.