Baker's Percent: The Ratio Bakers Use, and the Pyramid It Hides

Open a bread book and you may see a strange recipe: flour 100%, water 65%, salt 2%, yeast 1%. The total is more than 100, and nobody minds. This is baker's percent, and it is one of the most useful bits of everyday maths in the kitchen.

The one rule

In baker's percent, the flour is always 100%. Every other ingredient is a percent of the flour's weight, not of the whole dough. That is why the percents add up to more than 100.

Turning percents into grams

• Step 1. Weigh the flour: 500 g. That is 100%.
• Step 2. Water is 65%. 65% of 500 is 0.65 × 500 = 325 g.
• Step 3. Salt is 2%: 0.02 × 500 = 10 g. Yeast is 1%: 0.01 × 500 = 5 g.
• Step 4. The dough weighs 500 + 325 + 10 + 5 = 840 g.

Why bakers love it

Want a bigger batch? Change the flour and every other number follows. With 800 g of flour the water is 0.65 × 800 = 520 g. The recipe, the ratio, stays the same. That is also why two bakers with different bowls can compare recipes at a glance.

Now the pyramid

Here is a small puzzle in the spirit of the Baker's Percent lock in Escape the Bakery After Dark. The top brick is the flour, 100%. A brick with a tag is that percent of the top brick. As always, every brick is the sum of the two below it. Our wall has a 500 g top, a 60% tag on the left of the middle row and a 25% tag on the middle of the bottom row.

How a page looks in the book

A low-resolution page from Escape the Bakery After Dark, so you can see the layout. Nothing on it is solved.

Books mentioned

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