The Wood-Fired Blog
loaf

Five Pounds of Sugar in a Three Pound Bag (or Loaf Pan)

Nov 12, 2012Posted by Forno Bravo

I’ve been having a mismatch between my desire to use Baker’s Percentages in grams and American loaf pans. Baking in grams is one of the best things to ever happen to me. OK, that might be an exaggeration, but it’s still a big deal. Weighing everything on a digital scale eliminates measuring cups and measuring spoons, it’s faster, it’s more accurate and there isn’t anything to clean up afterward. What could be better?

And doing all of it in grams is so simple. It’s the 10 scale with zero fractions and very little complicated math. As a funny aside, the decimal system does seem to upset some people. One of our YouTube videos discusses making pizza dough balls by weight using grams, and one of the commenters wrote — “you are American. Quit using grams and use something we all understand. Cups or pounds and ounces”. I think he was serious.

But on to my mismatch. I bake bread in 500-gram increments, usually either 500 grams or 1kg per batch. Again, it just sort of makes sense, and the math is really easy. 20 grams of salt per 1kg of flour, and 10 grams of salt per 500 grams of flour. Even I can remember that.

But a typical 500-gram loaf of bread with some oatmeal or flax bran, seeds, nuts or raisins tends to weight about 1.2-1.3 pounds. Which means that is too big for a 1 pound loaf pan and too small for a 1.5 pound loaf pan. haha. I know in the big scheme of things that this really isn’t important. But here is a 500 gram loaf in a 1 pound loaf pan. Tastes great; looks too tall — and sometimes the top comes off in the toaster.

 

 

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