Don't forget to multiply the result by 13/12
Is this a joke or an advice which could use some more explanation?
Baker's Math (2009)
21–30 of 117 posts
Re: Baker's Math (2009)
#22Re: Baker's Math (2009)
#23Re: Baker's Math (2009)
#24It’s called abuse of notation as it’s useful in practice but not strictly a percentage.
Re: Baker's Math (2009)
#25When adding butter, throw away the formula.
When it comes to Pao Doce (a Portuguese sweet bread), butter is an absolutely necessary ingredient. And unquestionably delicious!
I think people who are downvoting must have misunderstood the joke. The joke is, add more butter. It's like estimating for an engineer, or adding the appropriate amount of salt and spice for a midwestern home cook. You can never ever go high enough. Whatever you were about to do with the butter, just multiply it by 3x and add 50% more on top again after.
(The one weird hack you wish you didn't know about your favorite restaurants' most flavorful dishes!)
Re: Baker's Math (2009)
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
You get used to it. In practice it makes things very simple! Especially if you have a scale with a % option [0], but even without if you’re cooking with nice round metric weights. I just chuck some flour on the scale, whack the % symbol, and use the set percentages for everything else. [1] https://myweigh.com/product/kd8000/
I just use 80% hydration, it makes things easier and tastier.
Depends a lot of ambient humidity. When I lived in the North of Ireland (rainforest humidity) I always had to vastly reduce the humidity level of every recipe, sometimes by as much as half, otherwise I'd be drinking my baguettes.
Re: Baker's Math (2009)
#27It’s called abuse of notation as it’s useful in practice but not strictly a percentage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abuse_of_notation
What’s the abuse here? This seems like ‘math’ to me.
Re: Baker's Math (2009)
#28For 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 all the numbers as only having two significant figures
Re: Baker's Math (2009)
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
You get used to it. In practice it makes things very simple! Especially if you have a scale with a % option [0], but even without if you’re cooking with nice round metric weights. I just chuck some flour on the scale, whack the % symbol, and use the set percentages for everything else. [1] https://myweigh.com/product/kd8000/
> You get used to it. You do. The single most important factor is "what does the dough feel like - how stiff and hard, or how loose and wet?" The water % captures this in 1 number. e.g. A 60% hydration pizza dough is much stiffer than a 80% hydration focaccia dough. Just by seeing that one number, I get an idea of how the dough is going to be to work with.
Yeah, but what you're saying is essentially "I don't need the recipe anymore - I can do this by feel", which is awesome, but who then is the recipe for except people who are trying to learn? Maybe throw us a bone :)
Re: Baker's Math (2009)
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is this a joke or an advice which could use some more explanation?
A “baker’s dozen” is 13. Presumably so that the baker gets one to himself.
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