For now, my delights are limited to the spreading of my own homemade butter on inferior store-bought bread, which on it’s own much intensivies the pleasure of it’s consumption. Perfect, home made bread *and* home made butter seems like a dream to me. I even wrote a post about making butter at home on my blog.

Here is the best way to adjust bread formulas if you are using weights (so, this won’t work with volume measurements which it has already been noted should be avoided). You may see this discussed elsewhere where it’s properly referred to as baker’s percentage. Note, though that the term ‘percentage’ is going to be used differently than it typically is used. Baker’s percentage is extremely helpful for two primary reasons: it allows the baker to determine the ratio of ingredients, and it provides a scalable way to adjust a recipe yield.

Bread recipes are all based on each ingredient’s amount relative to the total amount of flour used. The amount of flour(s) must always equal 100%. I would suggest reading those two sentences again because they are the foundation of everything that will follow.

Simple example: A recipe with 2 pounds of bread flour and 1 pound of water is said to have 50% water.

The same would be true of a recipe with 1 pound bread flour, 1 pound rye flour, and 1 pound of water.

Most recipes, though, only come with ingredient amounts. A 24-ounce loaf of basic white bread would look something like this (and you can also see why the precision of metric measurements is much easier to work with):

Bread Flour: 14.25 oz./405 g
Water: 9.25 oz./263 g
Salt: 0.3 oz./8 g
Yeast: 0.15 oz/4 g

If you have the ingredient weights but lack the percentages, they can be easily determined by dividing the weight of an ingredient by the weight of the flour. Using the metric amounts, here’s how that looks:

Bread Flour: 100% (flour is always 100%; likewise, a recipe which uses multiple flour types should add to 100%)
Water: 65% (263 g ÷ 405 g)
Salt: 2% (8 g ÷ 405 g)
Yeast: 1% (4 g ÷ 405 g)

Adding those percentages, everything totals 168%. Bizarre, I know, but stay with me. So, that recipe above makes a 24-ounce loaf. Here’s how to adjust the known formula to produce a different yield. Let’s say ou decide for a party you want to use this recipe, but instead of a 24-ounce loaf, you want 7 small loaves at 5 ounces each.

The math looks like this:

Total Recipe Weight ÷ Sum of Percentages = Weight of Each Percentage Point

Weight of One Percentage Point x Each Ingredient’s Recipe Percentage = Amount of Each Ingredient to Use.

So, we want a Total Recipe Weight of 35 ounces and the Sum of the Percentages is 168:

35 ÷ 168 = 0.2083 (this is the Weight of Each Percentage Point)

Now, multiply Each Ingredient’s Recipe Percentage by the Weight of Each Percentage Point:

Bread Flour: 100 x 0.2083 oz. = 20.8 oz
Water: 65 x 0.2083 oz. = 13.5 oz.
Salt: 2 x 0.2083 oz. = 0.4 oz.
Yeast: 1 x 0.2083 oz. = 0.2 oz.

Because of rounding, this is off by 0.1 ounces, but you get the idea. You can also see again how metric is easier. Determining 0.4 ounces for salt can be problematic with Imperial measures, but it’s a straightforward 11 g using the metric system.

If any of this isn’t clear, just post and I’ll try to clarify. Likewise, I am happy to provide tips of any sort, from how to develop and maintain a sourdough culture to how to easily and inexpensively add professional-style steam to loaves not baked in a Dutch oven.

I already mentioned to you on Twitter that I’ve been into bread-making for a little while, but I forgot to mention that the site I’ve frequented for lessons and ideas is The Fresh Loaf”. Click on “Lessons” at the top of the page for some more techniques. Granted, I’m sure books like The Bread Bible and The Bread Baker’s Apprentice are more thorough than that site by a massive margin, but the site is nice for people just getting their toes wet in the bread-baking world.

Speaking of which, I need to get a new loaf ready, as I just finished eating my current one…

[Ed: Link fixed... and thank you!!]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/08mini.html

I would recommend looking at Peter Reinheart’s “Bread Baker’s Apprentice”. His technique generally involves providing baker’s formulas (that is ratios based on the percentage of flour in a particular recipe) and augments that with some technique which can enhance both the flavor and texture of your baked bread.

As someone that is a homebrewer and wine maker, I also suggest you try your hand at “naturally fermented” breads (i.e. sourdoughs). Particularly given that you live near the bay area with its particular strain of bacteria (Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis). Be sure to check out . I had poor luck with some nasty bacteria before I made a starter by starting with Pineapple juice.