April 22, 2014 - 7:01am
Hydration ??
Can someone provide me with a % regarding this formula...thanks
1½ cups hot water
1 packet yeast
3¾ cups flour
¼ cup honey
½ cup sugar
1 egg
4 yolks
¼ cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons butter, diced and softened
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
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1½ cups hot water.... 1.5 x 240g= 360g
1 packet yeast
3¾ cups flour...........3.75 x 125g=470g
¼ cup honey
½ cup sugar
1 egg .................white... 36g (egg whites contain lots of water)
4 yolks
¼ cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons butter, diced and softened
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon vanilla extract.....15g (included although alcohol)
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water: 360g + 36g+ 15g = 411g (water weight divided by flour weight x 100)
So 411g / 470g = .874 X 100 = 87% (very wet dough)
Answer is 87% hydration. (Approximation of volume to metric weights, volume weights may vary due to cup variation and technique in filling cup. Your results may vary.)
Adding sugar and honey and yolks (if not beaten to a stiff foam) and oil will contribute to the liquidness of the dough but not the hydration. This reads like a cake batter.
All but the packet of yeast, I agree, it's a cake. Although, it's not a very sweet one. Maybe it's a donut?
risen with yeast. A cup of sugar (honey & sugar) is pretty sweet. Pour donut?
both. It was in the local paper last Thursday as Italian Easter Bread. My mother in law tried to make it 2x on Friday and Saturday. I didn't hear about it till Sunday when instead of bringing Easter bread she brought cheesecake. When I asked her why she sheepishly stated she had failed twice. I asked for the recipe which she had clipped...I read it and told her it certainly wasn't her fault and stated that just looking at the recipe there was no way it was making a dough stiff enough to handle let alone be braided as the recipe called for.I contacted the author of the article and asked her if the recipe was tested and was she aware how much Easter misery that single article caused in so many families...along with the waste of time and money. The article was actually about a family that makes this each year so the recipe was really third party but she told me she contacted them to triple check. We have yet to hear back. My guess is we won't.
That family must pack the flour into their measuring cups. And then add more that the recipe doesn't list.
Calculating hydration is generally done using weight measurements, with all the amounts being in either imperial (pounds and ounces) or metric (grams) system.
Converting volume measurements is tricky, because there's no one standard volume to weight number for flour. Water, sugar and butter are pretty consistent, but that's not very helpful if you don't actually know how much of your main dry ingredient you have.
I've seen weights for a cup of white all-purpose flour listed as being anywhere from 4.25 oz (King Arthur Flour) to 4.5 oz (Peter Reinhart) to 5 oz (Cooks Illustrated), or, when looking at metric, anywhere from about 120 grams to 170 grams. And then, of course, that difference will be compounded with each cup of flour.
This recipe is especially complicated because of all the enrichments; hydration only takes into account the ratio between the flour and the water (and milk, if being used). That said, since there's oil, sugar, honey, eggs and butter in your recipe, it will likely feel wetter and softer than a dough at the same hydration made without those additions.
I don't know if there's any good places on this site to find good information on calculating percentages, but there's some good lessons on Wild Yeast Blog. You can go here to read about why weight is better, and here to learn about the actual math involved.
That said, I estimate that the above recipe has a hydration of between about 75% - 64%. Here's what I did:
1 cup water = 8 oz
1.5 * 8 = 12 oz
If 1 cup flour = 4.25 oz
3.75 * 4.25 = 15.9375 oz
12 / 15.9375 = 75.29%
If 1 cup flour = 4.5 oz
3.75 * 4.5 = 16.875
12 / 16.875 = 71.12%
If 1 cup flour = 5 oz
3.75 * 5 = 18.75
12 / 18.75 = 64%
It would still be a batter. Even the instructions read strangely...combine all but the yeast and hot water on slow speed with a dough hook..Really??(Clumpy would be an understatement) Then add bloomed yeasted water and knead with dough hook medium speed for 8 minutes. Let rise for 3 hours till tripled.Will soup actually triple??
That would be a good trick, wouldn't it? And 3 hours with all those enrichments? How big are their yeast packets?
My mother says my Babci's babka recipe was more of a cake batter than a dough; probably was similar to this. But then, she was baking it in a pan, not saying to braid it.
The recipe goes on to say after the rise..punch down the dough and turn out on a cutting board. Cut into 2 equal pieces. Shape 3 long ropes out of each piece and braid with a hard boiled egg in the middle.Place dough in a round buttered cake pan and let rise till doubled about 1 1/2 hours. Bake at 325 20-25 minutes. I am guessing they really didn't want to share the recipe.
be the water amount is too high. One cup of water would yield 62% and with italian flour (like Caputo, thirsty stuff) might be closer to a 50% hydration dough with regular American AP. So that water has to be watched carefully to the type of flour.
A typo with half a cup water is only 36% and not enough to hydrate the flour.
How would we rewrite the recipe?
on flour using the stir spoon into the cup and scrape off the top I get 138 to 142 g every time depending on the flour used so I use 140 g for a Cup The honey is 50% water and the butter is 20% water the egg yolk is 40% water too. After doing all the figuring I too get 87%, the same as Mini but she does it does with a lot less figuring.
I would put it in a pan but that is iffy since it isn't whole grain or a rye bread Better just to call it an enriched ciabatta :-)
I don't think the water bound in the yolks and butter will hydrate the flour much. The water added at the end is interesting, makes for a short crumb considering the flour will be soaking up oil and be crumbly before the water is added. Or will it?
The bowl will be full of crumbs - the flour will be actually coating everything in the bowl before water is added. The exposed flour will soak up water and create dough, it might work, but...
I would still split up the water and put the active yeast into half a cup of water (4 oz or 120g) and then add the other half as needed to get a nice dough.
Even a 100% hydration dough (and higher) will come together if beaten enough. It would take probably 20 minutes on high speed with a paddle in a standard mixer; in a food processor, maybe a minute.
is on the questionable recipe.My pizza dough is 82% mixed by hand and stretch and folded 3x over a 2 hour period.,