7 ms·

Analyzing a Baking Recipe

61 points by Frotag 2y ago

mock-possum 2y ago
Do you ever just… turn off your adblocker, for a moment, to appreciate how genuinely bad some sites are? https://ibb.co/HThtg3g https://ibb.co/HThtg3g
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- kwhitefoot 2y ago
  Good grief! How do people live like that? I wonder if they make any money from all those advertisements, surely no one would visit twice.
- ghnws 2y ago
  Reader mode saves the day
progbits 2y ago
"for engineers", proceeds to measure baking ingredients by volume...
- fps-hero 2y ago
  Absolutely cringe worthy. The painful thing is it’s just a simple conversation factor but I couldn’t take the article seriously after that. Speaking of reinventing, the article rediscovered the concept of bakers percentage, which is how bakers always describe recipes! Except baker’s percentage is unit agnostic and not susceptible to variations in volumetric measurement, ingredient density, and non-universal cup sizes.
  - progbits 2y ago
    But it isn't just a conversion factor exactly for the reasons you state: a cup of flour will be different weight based on brand, how much it settled in the bag etc. Always have to deal with weights.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - blowski 2y ago
      Do those factors also affect how much volume you need?
      - currency 2y ago
        Baking is literally chemistry. You don't get consistent results if you measure a powder of quite variable density by volume instead of mass.
        explaininjs 2y ago
        You also don't get consistent results if you assume the type of flour, atmospheric humidity, baking conditions, etc etc. etc. will be the exact same as the recipe author's and simply blindly follow the exact measurements because "precision!". The best approach is to watch a video that clearly demonstrates how the product should look and feel at every point along the process, and do what you can to imitate that - even if it means leaving your scales and cups in the cupboard.
        eichin 2y ago
        Right, but you can successfully course correct if you have a reproducible measurement, instead of one that varies by 20% each time you make it (source: Cooks Illustrated magazine on angel food cake, did experiments on how much variation cup measurements of the same flour had - given their audience, probably preaching to the choir, but it was at least a decade ago...)
  - icegreentea2 2y ago
    Heh, engineering is being about as precise and accurate as needed. Knowing that your taking a shortcut and shrugging and saying "this is easier and still works" is the peak of engineering.
    - YeGoblynQueenne 2y ago
      Right? There's some misunderstanding that engineering is about precise measurements and reproducible results. That's a scientist, not an engineer. An engineer is the person who gets the job done and the thing built, and if it doesn't kill someone or explode and start a fire, then that's all good. But I think treating cooking as any of the STEM subjects is wrong. Cooking is an art. It has to please your senses and senses are not scientific instruments, they're subjective and inaccurate. Recipes are only templates and you need to use the brain to fill in the blanks: if I tell you to add two onions in a stew, can't you use your noggin to decide whether your onions are too small, and so you need to add more than two, or too large and so you need to add fewer? Will it ruin the stew if you add three onions, or one and a half? How many traditional dishes are the result of cooking another dish with what ingredients were at hand, or the result of mixing two things that were previously not eaten together?
- BlackFly 2y ago
  As opposed to cooks, who love measurements like - a carrot - four cloves of garlic - an onion - yolk of one medium egg - salt to taste because cooking isn't a science and precise measurements are generally worse than useless. If you spend more of your time trying to perfect the measurement instead of paying attention to the texture and flavor then you are cooking very well. People insist baking is different, but it really isn't; the margins for measurements are wide enough that with a bit of experience eying scoops of everything is an acceptable strategy. You build more experience by making a few mistakes or having someone shows you the behaviors outside the margins, but for a first time recipe, sure stick to the instructions.
  - geuis 2y ago
    It absolutely is different. It may not seem so to a non baker, but regular cooking has a lot more leeway. Baking consistently requires a much finer degree of control over the variables. The difference between "a pinch of baking powder" vs "5 grams of baking powder" is entirely different. In the first case, you're left wondering why pancakes came out good last time and why are they inedible this time. I'm no great cook or baker, but I've learned through trial and lots of error how to bake bread and a few other things. Get a scale and always convert to grams.
    - z2h-a6n 2y ago
      I disagree, as long as we're talking in ratios instead of absolute amounts. The difference between "a pinch of baking powder" vs "5 grams of baking powder" is about a factor of 20. I think the main differences between baking and other cooking are that: 1) There are often very large ratios of certain ingredients in baking which -- except for spices -- is not generally the case in other cooking; 2) You can often taste the food in an intermediate stage when cooking, and adjust the ratios -- e.g. for spices -- which is not generally as useful when baking. Of course using a scale is a good way to keep the ratios from getting too out of wack, and I usually do it too when baking and almost never when cooking.
      - ghaff 2y ago
- derbOac 2y ago
  I think measuring by mass is almost certainly more precise in theory, but in practice sometimes measuring by volume is easier to do, and therefore can be more accurate in practice sometimes. Most of the arguments about actual composition of ingredients (hydration of flour for example) and so forth can be extended to volume as well. Baking is also precise but it's not complex chemical synthesis. So I could flow with his attitude. What I've decided for myself is that the mass versus volume measurement really matters when the ingredient "measurable unit" size is very large compared to the amount needed for the recipe. So for something like granulated cane sugar in a muffin recipe, using mass versus volume probably won't matter very much, because the individual sugar crystals you are "counting" are very tiny compared to the amount you'd use in a recipe. There's probably going to be a bigger difference due to your impatience or the scale accuracy or whatnot than using volume versus mass. However, for something like whole walnuts, mass is going to be a lot more precise because there's potentially a lot of change between adding another 1 or 2 walnuts given the 1/3 cup you might need, they can shift around, etc. At least that's where I've come down on it for myself.
someone7x 2y ago
This strikes me as a pointless refactoring of baking because it mostly serves to make the engineer feel smart. When engineering is applied to cooking, it usually looks a lot more like Kenji Alt-Lopez and his peers when they refactor a recipe to produce a classic dish without any superstitious steps.
- mikepurvis 2y ago
  I agree. Baking is for me increasingly like the rest of cooking— based on feel and adaptation, particularly where variable ingredients like eggs and fruit are involved that can vary in size/composition and necessitate corresponding adjustments to the amounts of flour and sugar. All that to say, the moisture/volume analysis is interesting from a theory point of view and would perhaps help achieve a deeper understanding of the fundamentals, but at least for me baking is largely driven by instinct and that seems to have served me well.
  - dhosek 2y ago
    The thing about baking though is that much greater precision is needed. I can usually just eyeball stuff for stovetop cooking, but doing the same with baking can give wildly bad results.
    - dmoy 2y ago
      I agree, baking is way more difficult. It's like a longer feedback loop. A lot of cooking is like a really tight repl - maybe even with unit tests (tasting midway through). You can see results and modify on the fly. Baking is like hardware - you might not know where the bugs are until the thing comes back from the pcb print (comes out of the oven).
      - mikepurvis 2y ago
        People say this, but there's a lot of feedback you can still get along the way when baking— this batter is too runny or lumpy or stiff or tastes not sweet enough, or whatever else.
masfuerte 2y ago
[This is wrong; see below] > Some grids are empty because it would not make sense for them to exist. For example, a very moist bread (0.60) with a low butter content would be airy and tasteless. Eh? A simple baguette recipe - water, flour, starter and salt - has no fat and more moisture than this. And is very tasty. Wholemeal sourdough recipes are wetter still.
- jefftk 2y ago
  I don't think a baguette recipe is 0.6 by their definition? Their "0.60" would mean 3C of water to 5C flour. I'd expect a baguette to be around 0.50 (1C of water to 2C of flour). (They're not using baker's percentages)
  - masfuerte 2y ago
    I think we're both wrong! I was forgetting they were measuring in volume not mass. A cup of flour weighs about half of what a cup of water weighs. So 1C water to 2C flour is roughly equal masses, or a baker's percentage of 100%. That's too wet for a loaf. 0.6 on their scale is more water than flour, so it would probably resemble a batter. They are right that it wouldn't make a good loaf.
    - jefftk 2y ago
      Thanks! I don't cook baguettes; my ratio came from the first recipe I found looking online: https://lechefswife.com/baking-baguettes-for-beginners/ https://lechefswife.com/baking-baguettes-for-beginners/
      - masfuerte 2y ago
        That's interesting. I do bake but I'm no expert. My wettest doughs are 75%. That recipe is a bit more than 100%. I didn't think such a wet dough would hold its shape. I'm wrong again!
        2y ago
tantalor 2y ago
Glad to see this classic website again, and that it's still online! I learned a lot from this approach to cooking and baking.
0xbadcafebee 2y ago
Seems to completely disregard basic physics and chemistry which determine whether baked goods work. The conclusions at the bottom underscore this, in things like casually mentioning acidity, or the idea that you can't knead a high-hydration dough, or mentioning a "leavening ratio" of dry good without considering the other ingredients that will be modifying pH, mechanical action (mixing/kneading changing the result), cook time.... I'm a little shocked that people in the comments are calling this science.
- uoaei 2y ago
  This is what happens when people think they're smart just because they were good at school.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
wackget 2y ago
This is absolute nonsense.
juliefrench 2y ago
Baking is not science, it is art. Don't over engineer it.
- globular-toast 2y ago
  Disagree. Baking is science. Cooking is art.
  - whutsurnaym 2y ago
    Why are we treating science and art as a dichotomy here? Baking and cooking can be both scientific and artistic.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
AlbertCory 2y ago
The master of scientific cooking is Harold McGee (On Food and Cooking) https://www.amazon.com/Food-Cooking-Science-Lore-Kitchen/dp/0684800012/ref=sr_1_1 https://www.amazon.com/Food-Cooking-Science-Lore-Kitchen/dp/... and always has been. Nearly every serious chef has this on their shelf. To boot, he's a super-nice guy and I talked to him a couple times when he came to Google. Secondly, there's a fundamental difference in goals between home cooking and professional cooking. If you're doing it over and over in a restaurant, you really want it to be the same every time. If you're doing it for yourself, you need to accept and revel in the differences. If it really sucks, you just throw it out and order a pizza. Maybe next time you can do it better. I tried to get at that in my fave recipe: no measurements. https://albertcory50.substack.com/p/chicken-fried-rice https://albertcory50.substack.com/p/chicken-fried-rice
Optimal_Persona 2y ago
As a former professional baker for 2 decades, from corner bakeshops to a hippie co-op to a large scale dessert manufacturer with worldwide distribution - as soon as I saw the recommendation to use volume instead of mass I closed the tab, nothing of value could be there. Baking is both an art and a science. If you're a home baker you can ignore the science, if you are trying to make money you have to understand at least the basics of the science/physical behavior of your materials. I take a more intuitive/heuristic approach to cooking, and the single best resource I've found for cooking confidently & authentically by the seat of one's pants is Samin Nosrat's "Salt Fat Acid Heat". I've yet to find a similar guide for baking, and don't think one could exist given the narrow range of actually useful parameters. https://www.saltfatacidheat.com/ https://www.saltfatacidheat.com/ Reading down in the comments - ratios can be useful conceptually, but for production baking the actual size of the batch vs. the mixer, oven and other tools make all the difference. Gravity plays a part in, say, how a moist dough behaves in a 5 lb. vs. a 250 lb. batch, same for how things bake/burn in a full vs. partially full oven, same for depositors, extruders, sheeters, etc.
- xandrius 2y ago
  Totally agree here, we're in 2024 and still see recipes with "cups" and teaspoons where anyone who has done even half an hour of cooking class will know that they can vary wildly. I usually try to convert the recipe to proper measurements and adjust them as I make attempts and then stick to my version.

61 points by Frotag 2y ago

Do you ever just… turn off your adblocker, for a moment, to appreciate how genuinely bad some sites are? https://ibb.co/HThtg3g https://ibb.co/HThtg3g

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
kwhitefoot 2y ago
Good grief! How do people live like that? I wonder if they make any money from all those advertisements, surely no one would visit twice.
ghnws 2y ago
Reader mode saves the day

progbits 2y ago

"for engineers", proceeds to measure baking ingredients by volume...

fps-hero 2y ago
Absolutely cringe worthy. The painful thing is it’s just a simple conversation factor but I couldn’t take the article seriously after that. Speaking of reinventing, the article rediscovered the concept of bakers percentage, which is how bakers always describe recipes! Except baker’s percentage is unit agnostic and not susceptible to variations in volumetric measurement, ingredient density, and non-universal cup sizes.
- progbits 2y ago
  But it isn't just a conversion factor exactly for the reasons you state: a cup of flour will be different weight based on brand, how much it settled in the bag etc. Always have to deal with weights.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - blowski 2y ago
    Do those factors also affect how much volume you need?
    - currency 2y ago
      Baking is literally chemistry. You don't get consistent results if you measure a powder of quite variable density by volume instead of mass.
      - explaininjs 2y ago
        You also don't get consistent results if you assume the type of flour, atmospheric humidity, baking conditions, etc etc. etc. will be the exact same as the recipe author's and simply blindly follow the exact measurements because "precision!". The best approach is to watch a video that clearly demonstrates how the product should look and feel at every point along the process, and do what you can to imitate that - even if it means leaving your scales and cups in the cupboard.
        eichin 2y ago
        Right, but you can successfully course correct if you have a reproducible measurement, instead of one that varies by 20% each time you make it (source: Cooks Illustrated magazine on angel food cake, did experiments on how much variation cup measurements of the same flour had - given their audience, probably preaching to the choir, but it was at least a decade ago...)
- icegreentea2 2y ago
  Heh, engineering is being about as precise and accurate as needed. Knowing that your taking a shortcut and shrugging and saying "this is easier and still works" is the peak of engineering.
  - YeGoblynQueenne 2y ago
    Right? There's some misunderstanding that engineering is about precise measurements and reproducible results. That's a scientist, not an engineer. An engineer is the person who gets the job done and the thing built, and if it doesn't kill someone or explode and start a fire, then that's all good. But I think treating cooking as any of the STEM subjects is wrong. Cooking is an art. It has to please your senses and senses are not scientific instruments, they're subjective and inaccurate. Recipes are only templates and you need to use the brain to fill in the blanks: if I tell you to add two onions in a stew, can't you use your noggin to decide whether your onions are too small, and so you need to add more than two, or too large and so you need to add fewer? Will it ruin the stew if you add three onions, or one and a half? How many traditional dishes are the result of cooking another dish with what ingredients were at hand, or the result of mixing two things that were previously not eaten together?
BlackFly 2y ago
As opposed to cooks, who love measurements like - a carrot - four cloves of garlic - an onion - yolk of one medium egg - salt to taste because cooking isn't a science and precise measurements are generally worse than useless. If you spend more of your time trying to perfect the measurement instead of paying attention to the texture and flavor then you are cooking very well. People insist baking is different, but it really isn't; the margins for measurements are wide enough that with a bit of experience eying scoops of everything is an acceptable strategy. You build more experience by making a few mistakes or having someone shows you the behaviors outside the margins, but for a first time recipe, sure stick to the instructions.
- geuis 2y ago
  It absolutely is different. It may not seem so to a non baker, but regular cooking has a lot more leeway. Baking consistently requires a much finer degree of control over the variables. The difference between "a pinch of baking powder" vs "5 grams of baking powder" is entirely different. In the first case, you're left wondering why pancakes came out good last time and why are they inedible this time. I'm no great cook or baker, but I've learned through trial and lots of error how to bake bread and a few other things. Get a scale and always convert to grams.
  - z2h-a6n 2y ago
    I disagree, as long as we're talking in ratios instead of absolute amounts. The difference between "a pinch of baking powder" vs "5 grams of baking powder" is about a factor of 20. I think the main differences between baking and other cooking are that: 1) There are often very large ratios of certain ingredients in baking which -- except for spices -- is not generally the case in other cooking; 2) You can often taste the food in an intermediate stage when cooking, and adjust the ratios -- e.g. for spices -- which is not generally as useful when baking. Of course using a scale is a good way to keep the ratios from getting too out of wack, and I usually do it too when baking and almost never when cooking.
    - ghaff 2y ago
derbOac 2y ago
I think measuring by mass is almost certainly more precise in theory, but in practice sometimes measuring by volume is easier to do, and therefore can be more accurate in practice sometimes. Most of the arguments about actual composition of ingredients (hydration of flour for example) and so forth can be extended to volume as well. Baking is also precise but it's not complex chemical synthesis. So I could flow with his attitude. What I've decided for myself is that the mass versus volume measurement really matters when the ingredient "measurable unit" size is very large compared to the amount needed for the recipe. So for something like granulated cane sugar in a muffin recipe, using mass versus volume probably won't matter very much, because the individual sugar crystals you are "counting" are very tiny compared to the amount you'd use in a recipe. There's probably going to be a bigger difference due to your impatience or the scale accuracy or whatnot than using volume versus mass. However, for something like whole walnuts, mass is going to be a lot more precise because there's potentially a lot of change between adding another 1 or 2 walnuts given the 1/3 cup you might need, they can shift around, etc. At least that's where I've come down on it for myself.

someone7x 2y ago

This strikes me as a pointless refactoring of baking because it mostly serves to make the engineer feel smart. When engineering is applied to cooking, it usually looks a lot more like Kenji Alt-Lopez and his peers when they refactor a recipe to produce a classic dish without any superstitious steps.

mikepurvis 2y ago
I agree. Baking is for me increasingly like the rest of cooking— based on feel and adaptation, particularly where variable ingredients like eggs and fruit are involved that can vary in size/composition and necessitate corresponding adjustments to the amounts of flour and sugar. All that to say, the moisture/volume analysis is interesting from a theory point of view and would perhaps help achieve a deeper understanding of the fundamentals, but at least for me baking is largely driven by instinct and that seems to have served me well.
- dhosek 2y ago
  The thing about baking though is that much greater precision is needed. I can usually just eyeball stuff for stovetop cooking, but doing the same with baking can give wildly bad results.
  - dmoy 2y ago
    I agree, baking is way more difficult. It's like a longer feedback loop. A lot of cooking is like a really tight repl - maybe even with unit tests (tasting midway through). You can see results and modify on the fly. Baking is like hardware - you might not know where the bugs are until the thing comes back from the pcb print (comes out of the oven).
    - mikepurvis 2y ago
      People say this, but there's a lot of feedback you can still get along the way when baking— this batter is too runny or lumpy or stiff or tastes not sweet enough, or whatever else.

masfuerte 2y ago

[This is wrong; see below] > Some grids are empty because it would not make sense for them to exist. For example, a very moist bread (0.60) with a low butter content would be airy and tasteless. Eh? A simple baguette recipe - water, flour, starter and salt - has no fat and more moisture than this. And is very tasty. Wholemeal sourdough recipes are wetter still.

jefftk 2y ago
I don't think a baguette recipe is 0.6 by their definition? Their "0.60" would mean 3C of water to 5C flour. I'd expect a baguette to be around 0.50 (1C of water to 2C of flour). (They're not using baker's percentages)
- masfuerte 2y ago
  I think we're both wrong! I was forgetting they were measuring in volume not mass. A cup of flour weighs about half of what a cup of water weighs. So 1C water to 2C flour is roughly equal masses, or a baker's percentage of 100%. That's too wet for a loaf. 0.6 on their scale is more water than flour, so it would probably resemble a batter. They are right that it wouldn't make a good loaf.
  - jefftk 2y ago
    Thanks! I don't cook baguettes; my ratio came from the first recipe I found looking online: https://lechefswife.com/baking-baguettes-for-beginners/ https://lechefswife.com/baking-baguettes-for-beginners/
    - masfuerte 2y ago
      That's interesting. I do bake but I'm no expert. My wettest doughs are 75%. That recipe is a bit more than 100%. I didn't think such a wet dough would hold its shape. I'm wrong again!
      - 2y ago

tantalor 2y ago

Glad to see this classic website again, and that it's still online! I learned a lot from this approach to cooking and baking.

0xbadcafebee 2y ago

Seems to completely disregard basic physics and chemistry which determine whether baked goods work. The conclusions at the bottom underscore this, in things like casually mentioning acidity, or the idea that you can't knead a high-hydration dough, or mentioning a "leavening ratio" of dry good without considering the other ingredients that will be modifying pH, mechanical action (mixing/kneading changing the result), cook time.... I'm a little shocked that people in the comments are calling this science.

uoaei 2y ago
This is what happens when people think they're smart just because they were good at school.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

wackget 2y ago

This is absolute nonsense.

juliefrench 2y ago

Baking is not science, it is art. Don't over engineer it.

globular-toast 2y ago
Disagree. Baking is science. Cooking is art.
- whutsurnaym 2y ago
  Why are we treating science and art as a dichotomy here? Baking and cooking can be both scientific and artistic.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

AlbertCory 2y ago

The master of scientific cooking is Harold McGee (On Food and Cooking) https://www.amazon.com/Food-Cooking-Science-Lore-Kitchen/dp/0684800012/ref=sr_1_1 https://www.amazon.com/Food-Cooking-Science-Lore-Kitchen/dp/... and always has been. Nearly every serious chef has this on their shelf. To boot, he's a super-nice guy and I talked to him a couple times when he came to Google. Secondly, there's a fundamental difference in goals between home cooking and professional cooking. If you're doing it over and over in a restaurant, you really want it to be the same every time. If you're doing it for yourself, you need to accept and revel in the differences. If it really sucks, you just throw it out and order a pizza. Maybe next time you can do it better. I tried to get at that in my fave recipe: no measurements. https://albertcory50.substack.com/p/chicken-fried-rice https://albertcory50.substack.com/p/chicken-fried-rice

Optimal_Persona 2y ago

As a former professional baker for 2 decades, from corner bakeshops to a hippie co-op to a large scale dessert manufacturer with worldwide distribution - as soon as I saw the recommendation to use volume instead of mass I closed the tab, nothing of value could be there. Baking is both an art and a science. If you're a home baker you can ignore the science, if you are trying to make money you have to understand at least the basics of the science/physical behavior of your materials. I take a more intuitive/heuristic approach to cooking, and the single best resource I've found for cooking confidently & authentically by the seat of one's pants is Samin Nosrat's "Salt Fat Acid Heat". I've yet to find a similar guide for baking, and don't think one could exist given the narrow range of actually useful parameters. https://www.saltfatacidheat.com/ https://www.saltfatacidheat.com/ Reading down in the comments - ratios can be useful conceptually, but for production baking the actual size of the batch vs. the mixer, oven and other tools make all the difference. Gravity plays a part in, say, how a moist dough behaves in a 5 lb. vs. a 250 lb. batch, same for how things bake/burn in a full vs. partially full oven, same for depositors, extruders, sheeters, etc.

xandrius 2y ago
Totally agree here, we're in 2024 and still see recipes with "cups" and teaspoons where anyone who has done even half an hour of cooking class will know that they can vary wildly. I usually try to convert the recipe to proper measurements and adjust them as I make attempts and then stick to my version.