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Baker's Math (2009)

thefreshloaf.com

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Re: Baker's Math (2009)

#101

Post by JadeNB »

2b3a51 wrote: post #34
annoyingnoob wrote: post #4

For example, let's take a typical formula for French bread: Flour: 100% Water: 66% Salt: 2% Instant yeast: 0.6% Total: 170% My brain will not stop telling me that the total is 168.6%.

Think of it as a ratio(+) not percentages so Flour 100 parts, water 66 parts and so on (+) because that is what it is

> Think of it as a ratio(+) not percentages so

> Flour 100 parts, water 66 parts and so on

> (+) because that is what it is

It is! But it's a ratio to a standard 100 … and that's literally what a percentage is ("per centum" = "by the hundred").

Re: Baker's Math (2009)

#102

Post by Retric »

huhtenberg wrote: post #97
OJFord wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so sure, I had the same reaction to your comment, but then clicked through; it's a set of five thick books, essentially a history book, two textbooks, and two recipe books, at $125ea. Pricey, definitely, but phrased like that I think not so ridiculous.

Even for 5 books it comes out to $125 per book and you must get all of them. This doesn't really qualify as pricey.

It compares more favorably with collage textbooks which you could use these as.

Niche books can justifiably command higher prices.

Re: Baker's Math (2009)

#104

Post by adrian_b »

eps wrote: post #70
mcaravey wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it was an investment for sure. But it has allowed us to save a ton of time every day (e.g. save 30 minute on the autolyse), make tweaks to our recipes to match our processes, change our starters (use stiff levain instead of poolish for certain breads), and a bunch of other details. Not needed for the lay-person. For sourdough I’d opt for the Tartine books.

Autolyse probably is not the best example. I have several bread-making books and I don't think a single one advocates for autolyse. Not Tartine, not Forkish's, not Reinhart's. Lots of youtubers and bloggers love it though, no idea why.

For normal bread a rest time may be not useful, but there are special purposes when it may be needed.

For example, I make for myself at home a bread that is highly enriched in proteins, by washing the dough before baking, to remove a large part of the starch, up to 75% of it, so that the dough is enriched in gluten (the wheat flour used has a gluten to starch ratio around 1:6, while the bread made thus has a gluten to starch ratio around 2:3).

If a rest time of at least 20 minutes is not inserted between kneading the dough and washing it, the dough is not cohesive enough and the washing detaches not only the starch grains but also gluten fragments, causing a loss of the proteins that are intended to remain in the bread.

It is possible that with a much longer time of kneading the rest time could be omitted, but when the kneading is done manually and you make just one bread for yourself, it is certainly preferable to knead for only a short time, followed by a rest time during which you are free to do other activities.

Re: Baker's Math (2009)

#105

Post by JustSomeNobody »

ace2358 wrote: post #95
sircastor wrote: post #80

My Baking experience improved substantially for me when I moved to weighing my ingredients instead of measuring by volume. My voice assistant has also been super helpful in quick conversions from recipes.

I’ve never understood cooking by volume and will reject any recipe that uses it. Especially for ingredients that don’t have a fixed density. 1 cup of flour? I can easily get double the amount in my cup depending on how I scoop it. 1 cup chopped mint leaves… wtf? 1 large potato… kill me! At the farmers market potato’s can come in very different shapes and sizes. I’m confident enough of a cook to know how much mint and…

While it’s impossible to know how much the cup of flour weighed at the time the recipe was written, you can start by looking up how much the flour you are using weighs per cup and try that much with the recipe. Then if you feel it needed more flour, make a notation.

Re: Baker's Math (2009)

#106

Post by mmcgaha »

sneak wrote: post #61
mcaravey wrote: post #50

Commercial baker here. One place where this kind of math gets really weird is when the recipe uses multiple kinds of flours. We make a loaf that uses three kinds of flour, so this means a recipe will have flour percentages that are less than 100%, but that sum to 100% so the hydration percentage works. For example, the recipe might say: Bread Flour 80%, Whole Wheat Flour 15%, and Rye Flour 5%. Personally I prefer jus…

This, at $500, stretches even my credulity, even as a collector of books, lover of bread, and owner of books about bread.

Funny how we will easily spend that on something ephemeral like a phone or vacation but question it for something that will last forever.

Re: Baker's Math (2009)

#107

Post by bee_rider »

ReptileMan wrote: post #79

That is actually the more inconvenient way to do it. Much better is to start with 1kg end product weight and then use percentages of that. Scaling is also easier.

From an outsider point of view, my gut agrees. I mean, wouldn't it be easier to start with the quantity of end product, and go from there (It is just arithmetic to convert anyway, but still, the amount of dough in the end is what you care about, right?).

But I'm sure there's a reason they do it this way instead, Surely we aren't the first ones to think of this obvious alternative. I believe historically flour was big economic concern for bakers, so maybe putting it in terms of the thing that makes the biggest dent in their budget was more convenient.

Re: Baker's Math (2009)

#108

Post by mcphage »

ace2358 wrote: post #95
sircastor wrote: post #80

My Baking experience improved substantially for me when I moved to weighing my ingredients instead of measuring by volume. My voice assistant has also been super helpful in quick conversions from recipes.

I’ve never understood cooking by volume and will reject any recipe that uses it. Especially for ingredients that don’t have a fixed density. 1 cup of flour? I can easily get double the amount in my cup depending on how I scoop it. 1 cup chopped mint leaves… wtf? 1 large potato… kill me! At the farmers market potato’s can come in very different shapes and sizes. I’m confident enough of a cook to know how much mint and…

> 1 large potato… kill me! At the farmers market potato’s can come in very different shapes and sizes.

Yeah—and what happens if you end up with a large potato the size of a small potato? Then you're completely hosed.

Re: Baker's Math (2009)

#109

Post by golem14 »

travisjungroth wrote: post #40
temporalparts wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was a response to an old law where bakers were accused of "cheating" customers by overpricing undersized loaves or intentionally creating giant air pockets in their bread to minimize the amount of converted flour the customer would be getting. one such source: https://www.britannica.com/story/why-is-a-bakers-dozen-13

That article doesn’t have any sources and I’m hesitant to take it as a primary source. A blog isn’t an encyclopedia, even with the same name. Also doesn’t pass some cursory thinking. If the law is about loaves being too light or small, how does giving out an extra loaf to people who buy 12 help? Who is even buying 12 loaves of bread when restaurants are rare and refrigeration non-existent? Armies, but then they’re bu…

Bread rolls perhaps, not loaves?

But don’t forget, people used to eat _way_ more bread in earlier times …

Re: Baker's Math (2009)

#110

Post by whatshisface »

ace2358 wrote: post #95
sircastor wrote: post #80

My Baking experience improved substantially for me when I moved to weighing my ingredients instead of measuring by volume. My voice assistant has also been super helpful in quick conversions from recipes.

I’ve never understood cooking by volume and will reject any recipe that uses it. Especially for ingredients that don’t have a fixed density. 1 cup of flour? I can easily get double the amount in my cup depending on how I scoop it. 1 cup chopped mint leaves… wtf? 1 large potato… kill me! At the farmers market potato’s can come in very different shapes and sizes. I’m confident enough of a cook to know how much mint and…

>I’ve never understood cooking by volume and will reject any recipe that uses it.

Here is the secret: recipes are not all that precise. There is no point getting a caliper out to measure the length of a cinnamon stick when the variation between individual people's tastes is already larger than the variation in the (admittedly humorous) "cup of chopped mint leaves." A recipe will come out fine for large variations in input ingredients, if that wasn't true do you think the standard measuring cup sizes would be 1/4, 1/3, 1/2 and 1?

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