The devastating cupboard fever has sparked some awesome cooking recipes for what looks like everyone on Instagram. If you are one of the most recent bakers, you now get the hang of it feeding your Starter, as well as other basic ways to mold and hungry for a new challenge. Why not try making a recipe to make bespoke bread? In my humble opinion, that is a good time to get comfortable with the percentage of baking, an essential tool for any baker's shell.
There are many guides on the baking sheets out there, but they are either too many or difficult to understand, and for me – and I've been using them for over a decade. The idea has nothing to do with: A recipe for bread that expresses each ingredient as a percentage of the total amount of flour. To do this, take the weight of the mixture (always use the weight, will never volume – so you'll need a good ratio), divide by weight of flour and multiply the resulting value by 100. Repeat all non-flour. Done.
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This is easy to understand by example. To start, I change the origin of the ingredients to my favorite unreadable bread weight:
- 3 cups (375 grams) whole-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoons (about 6 grams) instant yeast
- 1 1/2 teaspoons (about 9 grams) table salt
- 1 1/2 teaspoons (about 6 grams) powdered sugar
- 1 1/4 cups (275 grams) warm water (90º-100º F)
(For a quick and dirty change of weight-to-weight ratio, just Google what a teaspoon or cup of each ingredient weighs in; that's what I've made for yeast, salt and sugar here.)
Most percent of baking starts with a measure of water, which is called "percent hydration" or "percent water." Here's what that calculation looks like as a recipe for the poor bread:
275 grams of water ÷ 375 grams of flour = 0.73
0.73 x 100 = 73% hydration
Do this for all ingredients and you get a list like this:
- 73% hydration
- 2% salt
- 2% sugar
- 1% yeast
There are several good reasons to use percentages instead of individual ratings, starting with a recipe. Baker's percentages apply to any and all amounts of flour; if you want to make a double slice of poor bread – which I always do – double the weight to 750 grams of flour and work back from there. Another great option: Over time, you will get used to thinking about the percentages so you can predict how the dough will behave before you mix it.
To explain what I mean, let's take a look at the ingredients in two of Lifehacker's recipes:
These numbers tell you about everything you need to know about the recipe provided. When the dough has a lot of water, it sticks and is slightly wet when combined with a little mixing. The lower yeast level requires faster rise times, which often results in a more bitter taste. Sugar promotes fermentation to a degree, but skips yeast to a greater degree – especially when combined with salt and oil. When you look at the numbers above, you start to see why the dough overnight is soft and requires a longer climb than others.
The balance and natural progression are great, but I think the good argument for baked percentages is that, in the end, they can free up recipes for you completely. They provide a framework for one change of variable you can control – the ratio of ingredients to dough- systematic and to be born again the way. If your bread comes out too thick, a subsequent increase in hydration may help promote gluten formation; if it rises too fast and falls into the oven, try dialing for hydration and / or yeast. Take notes and repeat.
As you strengthen the dough management tendencies, you will feel how many percent you can change, and how much. You may not have much to say about the heat or humidity in your kitchen, but by making strategic use of the techniques, you will eventually get into full baking. Until then, don't be afraid to try – with baked percentages as your guide.
