Baker's percentage is a mathematical method used in baking to calculate ingredient amounts based on the total weight of flour in a recipe. It expresses ingredient ratios as a percentage of the flour weight, allowing bakers to easily scale recipes and predict results. The key benefits are consistency, precision, ability to adjust ingredients, and a common language for comparing recipes.

1. BAKERS MATH:
BAKER’s PERCENTAGE

2. What is Baker’s Percentage?
• Baker’s percent, Flour Weight, or Baker’s Math is a
mathematical method widely used in baking to
calculate the amounts of macro, minor and micro
ingredients.
• It’s based on the total weight of flour a formula
contains. A way to express the ratio of ingredients to
one another by weight.

3. What is Baker’s Percentage?
• It is internationally used to express formulas for
baked products such as bread, cookies, cakes,
and most any product where flour is the primary
ingredient.
• Instead of dividing each ingredient’s weight by
the total formula weight, bakers divide each
ingredient by the weight of flour. Baker’s
percent is useful for quickly assessing if a
formula is drier, saltier, sweeter, etc.

4. Importance
of Baker’s %

5. IMPORTANCE:
• The greatest benefit to using baker’s percent is that
the baker can change the amount of any ingredient
at any time, without the need to refigure the percent
of all other ingredients.
• This is very useful when formulating new products,
adjusting processing parameters, and customizing
old recipes to fit modern dietary guidelines.
• From the baker’s percent equation and table,
bakers have the possibility of making any quantity of
product or a desired batch weight.

6. IMPORTANCE:
• Baker’s percentage makes it easy to see at a glance
the ingredient ratios and, therefore, the basic
structure and composition of the dough or batter that
will be obtained after mixing.
• A baker can predict crumb structure from the dough
water content or hydration. For example, 80%
hydration (8 parts water to 10 parts flour) often leads
to an airy and irregular crumb such as in Ciabatta
bread while 60% hydration (6 parts water to 10 parts
flour) yields denser and closed crumb similar to
American-style bread. More accurate predictions can
be made when hydration numbers are combined with
information on type of flour used..

7. IMPORTANCE:
• Baker’s percent leads to greater consistency in
recipes because it is always based on weight
• Ease and simplicity of scaling up or down formulas to
meet higher or lower demands
• Quickness to correct defects in the formula (it is
easier to tell if one recipe is drier, sweeter or saltier
than another recipe)

8. IMPORTANCE:
• Ability to check if a formula is well-balanced
• Precision of measurement and eliminating/fixing
scale errors
• Common language among bakers when comparing
formulas
• Consistency in production
• Ease of calculating the water absorption or hydration
of the flour
• Ease in predicting how the final product will look like

9. Baker’s Percentage:
Rules to Remember
o Always use weight and not volume when calculating
o Always use the lowest form of weight (example 2.36
kilo grams = 2360 grams) Grams are much easier to
calculate
o Always set the flour at 100%, and the total percent of
all the other ingredients is always greater than 100%.
o If there are two or more types of flour being used, the
combination of the weight of all flours will be 100%.
o This concept is completely different from the True or
Conventional Percent, where the combined
ingredients total 100%.

10. Baker’s Percentage:
FORMULA
Y= water, yeast, sugar, salt, fat, milk solids, bread improver, etc

11. The following table presents a typical
example of the baker’s % concept:
Ingredient Weight (gram) Baker’s % True %
Flour 60 100.0 56.818
Water 37.2 62.0 35.227
Yeast 1.8 3.0 1.705
Salt 1.2 2.0 1.136
Sugar 2.4 4.0 2.273
Shortening 1.8 3.0 1.705
Defatted milk 1.2 2.0 1.136
Total 105.6 176.0 100.0

12. Baker’s %:
Each ingredient in a formula is expressed
as a percentage of the largest ingredient,
usually the flour weight, always expressed
as 100%.
The advantage of this system (%) is that
it allows for the baker to easily convert
their recipe into different weight units,
such as pounds, ounces, kilograms, or
grams.

13. Keys to Managing Food Cost
And once all of the weights of the
ingredients in the recipe are calculated, it
easy to scale, or multiple or divide the
recipe.
It also leads to greater consistency in
recipes, because it is always based on
weight (pounds or kilograms). By looking
at percentages, it is easier to tell if one
recipe is drier, sweeter, saltier, etc. than
another recipe.

14. Keys to Managing Food Cost
It also makes predicting what the final
product will look like easier. Baker’s %
can be used to quickly and easily convert
between batch sizes as well.