August 22, 2022 - 11:34am
Pre-cooked ingredients weight (for Hamelman's potato onion bread)
So, in Hamelman's roasted potato bread with onions - I'm curious if the intended weights listed in the recipe are based on pre or post cooking (roasting). The onions especially lose a lot of moisture, and weight, in the process. I've made this bread a few times before, weighing post cooking, and it tends to be a bit too slack. Thinking of maybe trying the other way round.
Would be interested to hear any thoughts. It's possible the book clarifies this somewhere but if so I've missed it. Thanks.
Share
Yes, roasted, weighing post cooking. It says so on the list of ingredients as
Potatoes, roasted
Onions, roasted.
At least that is my understanding of it. On page 126, 2nd edition, Brown Bice Bread, he also writes brown rice, cooked 5lbs as one of the ingredients and he means to measure cooked rice. In the footnote he teaches how to calculate how much dry rice to start with.
Although your hypothesis is understandable as well, because bakers, when writing about flour in recipes for bread, have two ways of describing it.
1) sifted flour
2) flour, sifted
The first one is about the amounts of pre-sifted flour, no matter cups or grams. It instructs us to sift first, then measure. The second one tells us to first measure, then sift.
It is hard to say whether Hamelman or his book editors consistently follow the same rule for other ingredients. Personally, in a bakery, or even in my own kitchen, I would certainly measure the raw ingredients, both potatoes and onions (and rice!), before peeling them, removing inedible or spoiled parts, etc. then roast them and use them in the recipe. That is how it is done in a commercial setting.
Thanks, that makes sense. I agree that it would be easier to weigh them before, as it takes some guesswork to compensate for the moisture loss without making way more than you actually need...
I agree. Also, some potatoes are more "watery" after cooking them whereas others are starchy and dry which will definitely affect the dough and the bread crumb.
Good bread is our goal. If you feel or find from experience that indicated amounts of roasted vegs are too much then simply reduce them gradually as you bake this bread until you reach the sweet spot where there is a taste and aroma contribution from the roasted vegetables but the bread itself is to your liking as well.
after the first bake, why not simply reduce some of the recipe water? In the next bake the vegetables contribute their water to the dough? or is it better to roast them longer?