Understanding ratios, baking math and the baker’s percentage is what separates a good home or professional baker from the rest. Ratios simplify recipes, making them easier to memorize and scale up or down.
For example, a roux is equal parts fat and flour, while a hollandaise is equal parts eggs to butter. This article will explore the basic ratios for cakes, cookies and bread.
Basic Ratios for Cakes
A basic cake recipe is basically a cake version of a bread recipe but with baking ratios. The main difference is that cakes are sweeter and leavened by the addition of eggs (or sometimes chemical leaveners). When a baker understands basic baking ratios, they can make any type of cake or quick bread from scratch. The key is knowing how much flour, sugar, fat and eggs are required in a particular recipe, which can be determined by referencing a baking ratio chart.
To make a simple vanilla cake, for example, you need 2 parts (8 ounces) of flour to 1 part (3 ounces) of liquid and 1 egg. This ratio is also used to create most other types of cakes. It can be helpful to remember that in baking, measurements are weighed not volume, so when you’re creating your own recipes or adapting a classic one it’s important to use a kitchen scale to ensure accuracy.
While a novice baker can follow a written recipe, it’s the professional who has an instinctive understanding of how to combine ingredients and which ratios are essential for making certain pastries or cakes. Having this knowledge can help you free yourself from the limitations of traditional recipes, and create your own unique baked goods.
If you know which ratios are essential for making cakes, it’s easier to alter them if you need to. For example, if you need to make a smaller cake than the original recipe calls for, knowing that each egg is worth 6 cups of flour means you can simply divide the ratio by 2.
The same concept works for other recipes as well, like savory sauces or vinaigrettes. It’s important to keep a few of these baking ratios on hand so that you can easily create different types of dishes with the right balance of ingredients.
These books on baking science will give you the foundation you need to master these ratios and create delicious, homemade cakes, cookies, quick breads, and more! These cookbooks will teach you the underlying science of baking, how to properly measure ingredients, and how to troubleshoot recipes.
Basic Ratios for Cookies
When making cookies, you need to know how much flour, sugar, butter and eggs are required to make your recipe. A baker who understands these ratios can quickly scale a cookie recipe up or down depending on the number of cookies they need to make or the amount of ingredients they have at hand. It’s this knowledge of basic baking ratios that separates the professionals from the novices.
A baker who knows the basics of cake, cookie and bread ratios can make almost any recipe. Using these ratios as guides helps a baker feel confident in experimenting with different ingredients and techniques, creating the best possible version of whatever they are making.
Understanding these basic baking ratios is also important for a baker to be able to understand how to adjust a recipe and ensure consistency in the finished product. This is especially true when it comes to changing up the ingredients in a cookie or bread recipe. For example, if you change the ratio of the flour to butter in a cookie recipe, the cookies will have a different texture than if the original recipe was used.
Likewise, if you change the ratio of reactants in a chemical reaction, it can have a similar effect on the outcome of the reaction. If you double the ratio of sugar in a cookie recipe, it will have a different taste and texture than if you only use half as much sugar.
For a baker, understanding ratios is just as important as knowing how to measure in grams. It is essential for ensuring that a recipe is accurate and resulting in the correct texture and flavor. It’s also helpful for converting recipes that are written in cups to a more standard measurement such as grams, and for scaling up or down a recipe based on the amount of dough needed to be made.
Baking ratios are a common tool for professional bakers that help them to create the most successful versions of their favorite desserts. They are a simple and easy-to-use guide to help a baker to get the right result every time and provide some flexibility in recipe creation.
Basic Ratios for Bread
A basic bread recipe is composed of just a few ingredients — flour, water and yeast. When you understand the basic ratios for these ingredients, you can use a formula to figure out how much of each ingredient to add for the amount of dough that you want to make.
Baking is a science, and a good baker needs to know how to convert recipes from vague, wordy instructions into precise, mathematical formulas. That’s why knowing baker’s math (also known as “baker’s percentages”) is so important to mastering baking.
The cornerstone of baker’s percentages is that the total weight of flour in a recipe is treated as 100%, and all other ingredient amounts (including water, salt, preferment, nuts, etc.) are measured against that 100% to determine the formula percentages. This system makes it easy to scale up and down a recipe and immediately understand what type of bread you are making, and how the ingredient quantities will impact the result.
Often, bakers use a hydration percentage to describe how moist their dough is. For example, a standard-ish bread at 60% hydration would be made with five parts flour to three parts water (yes, there are also other small ingredients like salt and yeast involved too, but the “big” ingredients are grouped together in this category). This is an easy way for a baker to tell at a glance what kind of dough they are working with.
Another common tool for bakers is a conversion chart, like the one above, which shows how different units of measurement are equivalent to each other. Students are asked to identify the equivalent ratios shown in the chart, and then to produce their own conversion chart using a set of measuring cups and teaspoons that are all the same size (rather than different-sized blobs representing actual cup and teaspoon sizes).
The idea here is for students to have an informal experience with the intuitive concept that making multiple batches of the same recipe will give you the same results as a single batch of the same recipe. This is a precursor to the more formal ideas that they will learn later in the unit, such as that any ratio a:b is the same as any other ratio a : b, where a and b are equal numbers.
Basic Ratios for Pastries
For pastries, there is a basic ratio of flour to butter that bakers often use. For example, a standard shortbread cookie recipe calls for three parts (ounces) of flour to one part of butter. This formula ensures that the dough is firm and flaky while also remaining soft. This is a perfect balance of consistency and flavor, resulting in a sweet and delicious treat. In addition to a basic butter and flour ratio, many pastry chefs find it helpful to work with the following baking ratios when creating a variety of different treats:
Understanding these baking ratios will help you create a wide range of baked goods. By learning these basics, you will be able to adjust existing recipes and create your own from scratch. In addition, knowing these fundamentals will give you the confidence to experiment and expand your culinary repertoire.
Baking is a complex and delicate process that requires a high level of knowledge and skill. To be a successful baker, you must know how to properly combine ingredients and utilize specific cooking techniques to ensure your creations are consistent and delicious. In addition to proper technique, bakers must also understand the intricacies of ingredient substitutions.
Ratios and the Baker’s Percentage are essential concepts that every professional baker should be familiar with. By understanding these principles, you will be able to create any recipe with the consistency and desired results that you desire.
As a student at Auguste Escoffier, you will learn the importance of these concepts as you progress through your courses. The best way to master these important skills is to practice them regularly in the kitchen. This will not only allow you to better understand how baking works, but it will also help you to become a more efficient and productive cook by eliminating the need for a large number of written recipes. By becoming familiar with these baking ratios, you will be able to achieve the same delicious results time and time again.
