Bread-Bakers v107.n003.13

Hi Anne,

This shorthand "baker's math" nomenclature indicates a dough that's 
made in two stages--a very common and effective technique.

For the first stage the "Poolish" or "pre-ferment" is mixed together. 
As you can see it contains 16.85 pounds of flour, 16.85 pounds of 
water, and 0.02 pounds of cake yeast.

The percentages are the "baker's math." They show the amount of each 
ingredient in proportion to the total weight of the flour. For 
example, for the yeast: 100% X 0.02 pounds/16.85 pounds = 0.1% (after 
rounding). The percentages can be used to scale a recipe up or down 
to any desired batch size, and thus are the prefered notation among 
professional and home bakers.

You didn't include the procedure with the excerpt, but one probably 
just mixes all these Poolish ingredients together till thoroughly 
moistened and then cover and let it sit at room temperature for 12-15 hours.

After that time, the "final dough" ingredients are added (and 
kneaded, shaped and baked) according to the procedure in the recipe.

The "overall formula" section is just informational. It is the sum of 
the two preceding sections. For example,

16.85 # flour Poolish
39.33 # flour Final Dough
-------------------------
56.18 # flour overall formula

Finally, when making a small batch in the home kitchen one probably 
can't weigh out the small ingredients, like salt and yeast. So it 
will be useful to keep in mind:

1 oz of salt fills 4.17 teaspoons
1 oz. of instant yeast fills 12.5 teaspoons
1 oz. of cake yeast works like 0.4 oz. instant yeast

So, to make this at home, just figure out the total weight of dough 
you want to produce and then use the ratios to calculate the amount 
of each ingredient. (I made a simple spreadsheet to do it!).

Hope this helps.

Allen