How to convert the masses

[DEKE]

It's not what you think. 

I've always been the cook in the family but never the baker.  Motherhen got me interested in baking bread.  I have a loaf about to come out of the bread machine in 15 minutes.  I found that weighing the ingredients works much better in baking recipes.  One cup of tightly packed flour can contain twice as much by weight as a cup of sifted flour.  That much difference can change your bread from good to junk. 

I stumbled across a website about building your own wood fired oven.  All that stuff is interesting, but what I use all the time is the conversion calculators.  You can enter lour by type, wheat, AP, rice, etc and convert a cup to ounces or grams.  Even though I'm not really comfortable with metrics, I've gone to all grams in baking.  It also converts yeasts, oats, and other useful stuff. 

You can get a cheapo electronic scale from Amazon for $10.  It will have a tare function for you to zero out the weight of your mixing bowl, and then you measure all the ingredients by weight right into the mixing bowl without getting anything else dirty.  Easy peazy.   

All that is probably old news to you experienced bakers.  Here's the website with the unit conversion calculators:

www.traditionaloven.com/site_map.html

about half way down that page you'll see "cooking converters".  It's very handy. 

[Jolly]

My aunt loved to bake. Her oldest son picked the skill up as a lad, and even though he became a college professor, always was dabbling in the kitchen. When he retired, he opened a bakery and did well. Even was on a couple of Food Network shows, although he never won.

His son runs the business now, and it is still doing well thirty years down the line.

So I guess when somebody likes to bake, it can grow into a pretty serious hobby or even a business. Deke's Delights kinda has a ring to it, donchya think?

[daw]

Sorry but no scale for me. The first time I make something
I follow the directions to some degree. Or I look at a recipe
and start comparing.....
I put some of this and some of that, leave this and that out.
It is then more likely to my taste 😁
For instance, spaghetti, not much by itself but supposedly
good for you.Cook that in ham broth....green beans in hydrator,
cook them with bacon, some of each left over so put them together .
Very good! For next meal add dehydrated onions, even better.

I am not by any means a good cook, but I do make some real tasty bread!

[Txsteader]

Breads, as well as some pastries, can be a bit tricky, requiring more precise measurements to produce a more perfect finished product.

I never used a scale but was taught to 'fluff' the flour before scooping w/ the measuring cup, as opposed to scooping from flour that is packed. Even then, it took quite a few tries before I learned the correct 'feel' of the dough. Use a different flour such as whole wheat & it's a whole different learning experience.

Oh, how I would love to have a wood-fired bread oven! DH and I talked about building one but that's about as far as the idea has gone.

Congratulations on your bread-making skills DEKE. Good on you for persisting to get it right.

[DEKE]

I'm a long ways from getting bread right. I resisted getting the scale but I'm amazed at how much easier and faster it's made things. Sometimes my breads come out great, sometimes not. Last nights was a bit too dense, but it doesn't matter because I'll make sandwiches with it today and then the rest is going into stuffing tomorrow.

After Xmas I picked up a 18 lb turkey for 38 cents a pound. It was so cheap I couldn't pass up the deal. That's dinner tomorrow. For two people. I hope DW is REALLY hungry. I had planned on having that bird for Easter with family coming from Virginia and Ohio, but C19 changed our plans. Now I just need to free up freezer space, so it could wait no longer.

[Txsteader]

I'd venture to say that even experienced cooks have less-than-perfect results from time to time. So many things can affect the outcome, even the relative humidity from day to day.

I learned a lot hints & tips from lurking discussion groups - The Fresh Loaf being one of the best.

[Jolly]

Buy the scale. It's the key to consistency.

[DEKE]

Apr 2, 2020 16:10:20 GMT Jolly said:

Ozarks Tom is there any way you can make this a sticky post so that everyone has to read it when ever they come to CC? 

I ask this purely to assist others.  I assure you I have no other reason. 

[Ozarks Tom]

Apr 2, 2020 19:46:22 GMT DEKE said:

Apr 2, 2020 16:10:20 GMT Jolly said:

Ozarks Tom is there any way you can make this a sticky post so that everyone has to read it when ever they come to CC? 

I ask this purely to assist others.  I assure you I have no other reason. 

What post?

[DEKE]

Apr 2, 2020 20:16:29 GMT Ozarks Tom said:

Apr 2, 2020 19:46:22 GMT DEKE said:

Ozarks Tom is there any way you can make this a sticky post so that everyone has to read it when ever they come to CC? 

I ask this purely to assist others.  I assure you I have no other reason. 

What post?

[Deleted]

Hahaha! That post didn’t last long! Destroy the evidence!

[daw]

I will say I have failures..make sure your yeast is viable, or if you are
making sourdough, be sure it is still excitable..

I have won blue ribbons on my bread in case you think my hodgepodge
method does not work. . But if you do not feel comfortable leaving a recipe,
by all means stay with a recipe and no shame to it!

I am happy to see people getting into making bread. Homemade is a whole
different taste, and nutrition. There are so many types, dark rye with coffee and cocoa
as ingredients, ,I mention that one because I made it and took pictures. Using honey
or molasses give bread a different taste from sugar and a different color as well.

I made all my bread by hand until last fall, and 90% was sourdough. No yeast added
just the natural yeast in the sourdough.
This winter I bought a kitchenaide mixer for making bread, nice , now if I can get my
sourdough going again.

[Txsteader]

Oh my!! Dark rye w/ coffee and cocoa sounds fabulous!!

I don't have a breadmaker or a stand mixer but y'all are giving me the urge to get into making bread again. I had a great recipe for honey-wheat bread & was making some pretty impressive loaves of no-knead white bread before I got lazy.

[DEKE]

Daw, the advantage you have is experience. DW and I have been making Amish Friendship bread with a sourdough starter for years and it always comes out perfect, but it is more of a cake than a bread. When I try making real bread, I've read a hundred recipes and they all say things like, "if the flour is too moist, add...". How the heck do I know if it is too moist, too dry, not shiny enough, etc.

I've had very good luck with pizza dough, sweet breads like cinnamon rolls, and Parker House dinner rolls. The common theme of those breads is that they are a slow rise in the frig for up to several days. I don't know why that should matter, but I really don't know what I'm doing.

Something that seems like it should be simple, like a whole wheat sandwich loaf, remains an elusive target. When I think I've got my recipe adjusted just right, the next time it is not as good. Bagels and pretzels I've only tried once and neither time was I happy with the result. But DW keeps pushing me to make pretzels because she loves them with cheese fondue.

My yeast is good. I used it a few times last week with perfect results and it has been in the frig ever since.

[Ozarks Tom]

My wife uses a Japanese bread machine, and makes about a loaf a week. Nine out of ten are great looking in shape and texture, overall successes. But, last week she took one out of the machine that made me want to go get my 12 gauge....it looked exactly like an armadillo, high on one end, way low on the other. Tasted great though.