Increasing a bread recipe… A LOT!

[aaronatthedoublef]

Hi,

I am teaching my challah class for the third year in a row and the temple has asked me to work with the seventh and eight graders. We'll probably need about 30 pounds of dough and my recipe makes between 4 and 4.5 pounds.

I know that when scaling up a bread recipe the amount of yeast does not increase linearly. With the recipe below how much yeast would I need if I increased this seven or eight times?

Thanks

Ingredients:
Dry:
• 6 - 7½ cups bread flour
• 2 tablespoons instant dry yeast
• 2¾ tsp. Salt (optional)
Wet:
• 1 cup warm water
• ¾ cup apple cider
• ½ cup honey
• ½ cup vegetable oil
• 3 eggs

Egg Wash:
• 1 egg plus 1 egg yolk
• 1 tablespoon water

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[Mike Nolan]

Salt and yeast are the ingredients you need to be most careful about when increasing a recipe, mostly because small measuring errors can get compounded in a large batch.

You could try putting the original recipe into baker's math and scale up using that.

I'd cut back on the yeast just because I think most recipes use more than what is needed anyway.

Hopefully the temple has a large commercial mixer you can use. But if I was teaching a class like that, I think I'd have the large recipe of dough mixed up ahead of time (through the bulk rise and ready for shaping) but mix up a single batch to start the class off just so they can see what you're doing. If you time it right, the batch you make up during the class should be nearly ready for shaping around the time that the large batch is shaped, proofed and ready to go in the oven, so if you want to demonstrate a different braiding technique or something like a two layer celebration Challah or a ring, you can do that while the dough is baking.

Teaching a class like that sounds like fun, I wish I was close enough to assist.

[BakerAunt]

Aaron:

Do you have a mixer big enough to mix a x7 or x8 recipe?

Also, is it really 2 Tbs. yeast in the regular recipe?

[aaronatthedoublef]

Let's try this again... sorry I typed a long response a couple nights ago and then my browser timed out as it was posting and it was lost. So here we go.

First, thanks for your replies.

This is the third year I've done the class. Mike, it is a blast for me and the kids seem to like it as I've been asked back to do it again. The difference this year is they would like me to do this with the seventh and eighth grades. In the past I've made about 15 pounds of dough. This year's eighth grade is bigger than last plus the seventh and I figure I'll need around 30 pounds.

The last two years I made four batches in my 5qt KA on Saturday afternoon and let it rise overnight in my refrigerator. Then Sunday morning I moved it to temple and cut it into 15x1 pound rounds. I then cut up each pound into three balls, wrapped them, and put them back in the refrigerator.

Then the kids came in and we shaped loaves of challah. Some made simple, three stand braids and others were more ambitious. A girl last year made three of the best looking loaves of challah I've ever seen including a three strand, braided round.

We set the challah aside to rise and then I showed them how to make the dough to the point where I put it in the refrigerator for the first rise. I've used my recipe in my mixer. This year I want to show them a no-knead recipe so they know a $250 stand mixer is not a requirement to make bread. And I know I could make my loaf and knead it by hand but I am too lazy. I did it for my son's bar mitzvah when I needed a loaf bigger than I could make in my mixer but I don't want to do that again. 🙂

As to making the dough, the eighth grade teacher has offered to meet me at temple with her mixer and help me pre-make the dough. Also, I have a second, 4qt mixer that I could bring so we could make three batches at a time. We might even be able to open it up to students and parents who are interested.

Or, I could ask a chef friend if I can steal some time in one of his restaurants and make the dough in one batch in his big Hobart.

The other thing is what we do with the challah. Two years ago we did this in the fall and gave them to congregants who could not come to temple during the high holidays. Each student delivered a loaf to someone so that was very personal.

Last year they sold the loaves to the temple for a buck a piece and gave the money to the local food bank. If they sell them this year they need to raise the price. Supermarket challah sells for about $2 a pound and this is way better bread (even if some of the them are a little funny looking). It's a fundraiser so people should be a little generous. And we use pretty good ingredients.

I wanted to start planning now because we're doing this in February and time has a way of creeping up on me and I don't want to wait until the last minute.

Thanks

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