In our example, the hydration is 70%, which – depending on the flour you use – can be just right or a little on the wet side. Hydration simply means the amount of water in a dough, and is presented in bakers’ percentage. So, let’s look at one more term: the hydration level. This is how the bakers’ percentage notation combines all these different recipes into one. In the same way, if you wanted to use 500 grams of flour, you’d just use 350 grams of water (500 * 0.7), 10 grams of salt (500 * 0.02) and 5 grams yeast (500 * 0.01). We now have used the formula to create a basic bread recipe for a kilo of white flour. Next, we can calculate the other ingredients: Had I used two different flours, they would together be 100% (for example 20% wholemeal flour and 80% bread flour). Here’s how I got from these percentages to the final formula: I first decided to use 1000g of flour.
It’s a number that tells how much of any ingredient is present in the dough, in relation to the amount of flour. This is important so I’ll repeat: a bakers’ percentage is not your regular percentage. Let me explain it: when using the bakers’ percentage notation, every ingredient is presented as its proportion compared to the total amount of flour in the dough. Here’s the same formula from above, this time written using bakers’ percentages instead of weights: Replace the yeast with some sourdough starter, or a pre-ferment, and you have great bread.īut now, the “magic”: By replacing the weights by numbers known as bakers’ percentage this formula becomes not just one formula, but the root for all formulas. The most basic of bread formulas, a formula that already leads to a decent loaf of bread. To make the math as easy as possible, I am using 1000 grams of flour. Let’s start with an example: the most basic bread recipe of them all. Change the amount of salt too much and your bread is no longer edible, so most of the time we just play with the proportions between water and flour.
The FormulaĪs I already mentioned, to make great bread, all you need is four ingredients (three actually, but we’ll get to that later): flour, water, leaven, and salt. Understand those variables and you can be the chief scientist in your kitchen - and start experimenting. It all comes down to just a few basic variables and then a lot of testing to find out the values that give YOU the best results when using your ingredients. Similarly, working from the other direction, you can start with those ingredients, varying their proportions and maybe adding one or two extra ingredients (fats, seeds, nuts, maybe some sweeteners…) and get to almost any type of bread. Start with any bread recipe and strip away all ingredients that aren’t strictly necessary and soon you’ll notice that you are left with just four basic ingredients: flour, water, salt, yeast (or leaven). This is possible because all breads are related. On a small slip of paper, or – more and more often these days – in a file in BreadStorm, I write down the proportions of ingredients as I decide what to do with them in the bread I am making today. I think about the previous breads I made, what worked last time with the specific mix of flours I am about to use. Sure, I read a lot of books about bread and gather ideas from them, but more often than not, when it’s time to make the bread, it’s just me, my scale and a few numbers in my head. Most of the time, when I bake bread, I don’t look at a recipe.
0 kommentar(er)
