In your Wed, 10 Jun 1998 message you state:
>My question is: when you have an ABM recipe that states the weight of
>the loaf, i.e. 1 pound, 1 1/2 pound, 2 pound, does that refer to the
>weight of the finished loaf or the weight of the dough that is baked to
>make the finished loaf? This information would help me some in
>converting your recipes back to traditional format.
Hi Ruth
I've been converting back and forth between hand made recipes and ABM recipes
for years and to be honest, the weight given for the the loaf is of little
importance since it is only approximate. The important factor is the amount
of flour the recipe calls for.
The 1 1/2 pound loaf recipes for the ABM usually have about 3 cups of flour
and about 1 cup of liquid. The 1 pound loaves have about 2 cups of flour and
about 2/3 cup of liquid. The two pound loaf would have 4 cups of flour and 1
1/3 cups of liquid. This makes it real simple to convert back and forth
between ABM and hand made recipes. The 3 cup of flour recipes will fit
perfectly in a 9 X 5 inch bread pan and the 2 cup of flour recipes will fit
the 8 1/2 X 4 1/2 inch size. I have no idea what the 2 pound loaf will fit
into, maybe a dish pan.
So, all you have to do is decide how many of which size bread pans or loaves
you want to make then do a simple ratio basing everything off of the quantity
of flour. In other words. If you see a 1 1/2 pound recipe that looks good
but you want to make two 9 X 5 inch loaves -or the equivalent size free form
loaves- just double everything and it'll work out perfectly.
If you have a recipe storage program such as MasterCook, it even becomes
easier because the program already has a built in recipe scaling feature.
Just tell it the how much the original recipe made and how much you want the
new recipe to make and bingo the software does all the arithmetic. That's all
there is to it.
As far as weighing the ingredients is concerned, I've done it and am not sure
I like it all that much. The problem with weighing is twofold. First, none
of the manufacturers seem to be able to agree on the weight of a cup of flour.
Pillsbury's uses one figure, King Arthur's uses another and Gold Medal uses a
third. Second, weighing tends to eliminate the slight variations that make
each loaf of home baked bread unique. Personally, I like those little
variations. That's what keeps home baked breads from becoming monotonous.
Ruth, I hope this helps.
Happy Baking!
Don