Hi, in a previous forum post I started on scaling a recipe, Chef Burton talked about how he uses the Baker's Percentage for his cooking recipes. It was somewhat of an epiphanic, ah-hah moment for me, having not read The Modernist Cuisine epic up to that point. My wife bought me the affordable, 1-volume home version recently. Since I take a lot of notes on all kinds of cooking and baking techniques, I thought I'd share my notes on how I use the baker's percentage in cooking.
I hope this information might be helpful to some folks out there. It's not comprehensive and it may have some minor errors. It's just what I've created for myself as a reference (though I modified it here to 2nd person)
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Using The Baker’s Percentage in Cooking
You can use the Baker’s Percentage for any recipe, not just for baking recipes. This document provides some basic information and calculations that you’ll need to employ the Baker’s Percentage in cooking.
About Using the Baker’s Percentage
I use the Baker’s Percentage for cooking recipes, not just baking recipes. By using this approach, you’re able to:
- Replicate consistent outcomes every time
- Easily scale a recipe
- Discover flavor ratios, inspiration for new flavor combinations, learn all sorts of stuff
The “Lead Ingredient”
This is the ingredient that usually has the biggest effect on the yield of the recipe. For example, in a bread recipe, it is typically the flour. In a marinated meat recipe, it is typically the protein or meat. In the Baker’s Percentage approach, the Lead Ingredient is always given a percent value of 100%.
Important: You must determine the exact weight of the Lead Ingredient in grams to calculate the percent and weight of each Secondary Ingredient.
The “Secondary Ingredients”
Simply put, the Secondary Ingredients are all of the ingredients in a recipe EXCEPT for the Lead Ingredient. However, unlike the Lead Ingredient, the percent value of each Secondary Ingredient is determined based on its proportion in weight to the Lead Ingredient.
Required Mathematical Formulas
To determine the Weight of Each Secondary Ingredient:
Weight in Grams of Lead Ingredient X Percentage of Secondary Ingredient = Weight of Secondary
Example: 500 g. X .20 (i.e., 20%) = 100 g.
To determine the Percent of each Secondary Ingredient:
Weight in Grams of Secondary Ingredient / Weight in Grams of Lead Ingredient = % of Secondary
Example: 100 g. / 500 g. = .20 or 20%
Notes:
- You must own a digital scale to measure ingredients in grams and use The Baker’s Percentage.
- I use a pocket-sized digital scale for measuring small amounts in grams because I find the larger scales do not accurately measure very small amounts, especially of spices and light powders like xanthan gum and very hot chili powders.
- If you have an existing recipe using common culinary measurements (e.g., cups, teaspoons, ounces, etc.), you convert it to a Baker’s Percentage by weighing all of the ingredients in grams the next time you use the recipe. Once you have those weights, you can identify the lead ingredient and apply the preceding calculations. You can also just estimate ratios of ingredients in proportion to the Lead Ingredient to make a "rough translation".
- To develop your own, original recipe based on the Baker’s Percentage takes understanding how much of each ingredient you think you need based on experience, trial-and-error and your knowledge of flavor combinations and flavor ratios. That said, I’ve found that developing recipes in this way is usually an invaluable learning and discovery experience.
How to Scale a Baker’s Percentage Recipe Based on Yield
When I use the phrase “scaling a recipe” within the context of a Baker’s Percentage in cooking, I see this phrase as having two mathematically-related related though somewhat separate meanings:
Scaling a recipe up or down based on the Lead Ingredient.That is, the more of the lead ingredient you have, the more yield you get. For example, if the Lead Ingredient is pork for a marinade recipe and you increase the weight of the pork to 800 grams to accommodate 7 people, you simply scale the recipe and calculate the weight of the Secondary Ingredients based on the 800 grams of pork.
Scaling a recipe up or down based on a specific, defined Yield(e.g., Serves 8). Scaling a recipe based on yield is a bit more complicated and involves some simple math, and while I respect and admire the importance of math, I’ve never been a math whiz. Anyway, here’s how it’s done using an example with a mac & cheese recipe provided by Modernist Cuisine (http://modernistcuisine.com/2013/01/how-to-scale-a-recipe/), which I’ve simplified a little.
Example:
**This recipe yields 5 servings (800 g. or 5 C. of cooked product; 1 C. or 160 g. per serving)
Ingredient
Weight
Scaling (i.e., Baker’s Percentage)
Cheese, shredded
285 g.
100% (Lead Ingredient)
Milk
265 g.
93%
Dry Macaroni
240 g.
84%
Sodium Citrate
11 g.
4%
Step 1: Identify the Lead Ingredient and Calculate the “Scaling Factor”. Note the weight of the Lead Ingredient, which is 285 g. in this case. Now calculate the Scaling Factor by dividing the number of servings you want to make by the recipe yield. Let’s say you want to make enough mac & cheese for nine people, here’s the math: 9 / 5 = 1.8
Note: As noted in the Modernist Cuisine example, you can use the weight of the total yield (i.e., 800 g.) to calculate the scaling factor, but I’m not going to do that here for simplicity.
Step 2: Calculate the weight of the Lead Ingredient for the revised desired servings. To do this, you multiply the weight of the Lead Ingredient for 5 servings by the Scaling Factor. Here’s the math:
285 g. X 1.8 = 513 g.
Therefore, the Lead Ingredient’s (i.e., cheese) weight for 9 servings is 513 g.
Step 3: Calculate the scaled weight for each Secondary Ingredient. You do this by multiplying it’s Scaling Percentage by the revised weight of the Lead Ingredient for 9 servings, in this example. Here’s the math for the macaroni: .84 (84%) X 513 g. = 430.9 g.