An analysis of two similar recipes

[Mike Nolan]

In another thread, I've been talking about the buns recipe from Solveig Tofte that showed up in a recent BBGA email and on the BBGA forums.

The more I looked at this recipe, the more it resembled a recipe I've made before--the one that came with the Chicago Metallic sandwich roll pan that King Arthur used to sell.

I put both recipes into the Excel spreadsheet I've been tinkering around with and here's a comparison of the two recipes, using baker's percentages.

Ingredient           King Arthur   BBGA/Solveig Tofte

Bread Flour              100.0%               100.0%
Flour in Preferment       33.3%                30.0%
Hydration of Preferment   94.0%                80.0%
Water                     63.0%                54.9%  
Salt                       2.5%                 2.2%
Yeast                      1.0%                 1.5%
Sugar                      2.0%                 6.0%
Butter                     4.0%                12.0%

I'm curious as to which of these differences have any noticeable (or measurable) impact on the end product. Taste and mouth feel are really subjective measures.

There are 7 factors that differ between these two recipes, though some of them may be so small (like salt) as to be meaningless. Moreover, testing them all individually and in combination would require dozens of test bakes. But how do you compare the differences? Are there measurement tools?

Some years ago someone speculated that there were over 100,000 recipes for white bread on the Internet, and many of them were slightly different from each other.

It makes me wonder just what happens with a change to any of the ingredients, and what impact process (type and length of kneading, rising times, shape, baking conditions) has on the bread.

I haven't tried making the BBGA/Tofte recipe as hoagie buns yet, I may do that over the weekend or next week.

Spread the word

      

  

  

[Author]

Posts