I have baked for a long time and I am ashamed to say I never understood bakers percentage or how to increase or decrease a recipe. I wanted to make a loaf big enough for my new large pullman pan and I don’t know how to increase a recipe to make that happen. Can someone kindly explain it to me in layman terms how to do this if there is such a thing?
I’d be glad to try to help. I scale recipes up and down all the time. While I usually do it in a spreadsheet template I made, it can easily be done with pencil and paper. Knowing bakers percentages is always good but not necessary for scaling recipes. What IS necessary, at least with my method, is a kitchen scale, a willingness to measure in grams (as opposed to pounds and ounces), and a calculator, along with the pencil and paper! Let me know if you’d like details.
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Thank you for your offer.This is a recipe I am trying to convert to fit a large pullman pan. I figured it would take a 3lb loaf per Melissa’s suggestion.
- 1 1/2 cups warm water
- 1/4 ounce active dry yeast* (1 packet)
- 1/4 cup honey
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
- 3 3/4 cups whole wheat flour (you may need as much as 4 1/2 cups)
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
This is what I came up with trying to figure it out. I am afraid I don’t understand clearly.
2310 grams flour
1536 grams of water
350 grams of honey
186 grams butter
12 grams of salt
I would love to learn your method.
I would start by finding out the volume of both the small pan and the new big one. The easy way is to place the small one on your kitchen scale (set to grams), make sure the scale is at zero, and fill with water. Jot down the weight. Then do the same with the large pan. Now you can figure out how much bigger the new one is(and thus by how much you need to increase each ingredient) by dividing the large number by the small number.
For example,
Large pan holds 2100 g
Small pan holds 1100 g
2100/1100 = 1.9
Now we know that every ingredient (in grams) needs to be multiplied by 1.9. That is the new amount.
Then you need to convert each ingredient of the current recipe into grams. I’m not sure how you arrived at what you wrote above but here’s my suggestion. You can search in your browser “3 tablespoons butter = grams” . Then multiply that number of grams by the number you got after weighing and dividing large by small (not my fictitious 1.9!).
Does this make sense? If not, please weigh the water in each pan as I described and I’ll get the rest for you. I don’t mind doing it but you’ll learn more if you try it yourself!!
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I will weigh the water. and work at this formula and see what I can come up with. I will get back to you should I get confused (likely).
The large pan weighs 3782 grams filled somewhat to the top with water. It also leaks are they suppose to leak with water like that?
Ok I got confused. I got the correct grams for each unit of measurement . I multiplied those gram weights by the total volume of water grams in pan.I got confused by this next statement. (Then multiply that number of grams by the number you got after weighing and dividing large by small (not my fictitious 1.9!).
This a calculation for percentage of a ingredients . What number do I need to be concerned with? The first two? Would it be 25%0r 26%?
I think the 3782 grams includes the weight of the pan itself. Right? We don’t need the weight of the pan, only the water inside the pan. So if you place the pan on the scale before turning the scale on, it should read zero. Or, your scale might have a button called “tare” that you can press to get it to read zero. Either way, just jot down the weight of the water in the pan. Then do the same with the small pan and let me know the two numbers.
No, I don’t think a pan should leak but for a bread dough I doubt it will have much effect. Hard to imagine a bread dough will leak out. But I don’t have any experience with a pan that leaks water!
For the percentage, typically .255 would be rounded up to 26% although in my experience for bread baking it doesn’t really matter that much.
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Here is what I came up with when I looked up what each ingredient of the ORIGINAL recipe weighs in grams:
360 g water (1-1/2 cups)
7 g yeast (1/4 ounce)
85 g honey (1/4 cup)
43 g butter (3 tablespoons)
544 g whole wheat flour (3-3/4 cups)
3 g kosher salt (1/2 tsp)
Is this what you came up with?
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Not sure about other ingredients @Arlo48 but…
1 cup water = 236g
1 cup flour = 120g
1 tsp salt = 5.36g (but i’m not sure where ksoher salt comes into this)
1 tbs oil! = 15g (I think)
Hope this helps.
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It is exactly what I got Arlo.
I weighed the pan per your instructions again. I got 2250 filled 3/4 to leave room for bread expansion.
Thanks, Abe. Seems there are always slight variations!
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Great! That was the big pan, right? Can you now do the same with the small pan you normally use, also filled about 3/4?
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On second thought, I’m going to get picky! Please fill each pan to the top with water. This doesn’t mean the dough will be to the top — we’re only trying to compare the volume of the two pans.
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lol will do Arlo . I have been working on understanding the bakers percentage.
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