02-20-2010, 11:57 PM
Maybe you should buy a scale. Oh, wait, you have one!
I bake bread regularly. I bake lots of brioche, and use brioche as the basis for sweet rolls. I don't use a scale. I don't even have one. I would if I baked wedding cakes, but for bread it's really not necessary. I can make a fantastic brioche without even measuring cups or spoons.
500 grams of flour is common amount for a recipe. It's 17.6 ounces, or a little more than one pound. One pound of bread flour is maybe a bit more than 3.5 cups. Many or most recipes call for 500g, or 1 lb, or 3.5 cups. But the weight per volume depends on the type of flour, and the moisture content, and how you scoop it.
The salt is off, but that's an error in both the recipe and the conversion. How much one teaspoon weighs depends on the type and brand, but for the most part, a teaspoon of salt is close to a quarter of an ounce. I'd be wary of any calculation that starts with 1 tsp = 5g. I know that's what many cheap measuring spoons say, but it's absurd. By my conversion, 65 grams = 2.3 ounces, or roughly 9 tsp, or 3 TB. Which is still way, way too much.
In bread, one pound of flour usually goes with 1 or 2 tsp of salt. I use 2 tsp in a regular old peasant bread. In a brioche, with all those eggs and unsalted butter, going to 1 TB would be fine, but I still stick with 2 tsp out of habit. So, whether you add 9 tsp, or 13, it's going to ruin your brioche.
You can carefully measure 500 grams of flour, and 2 tsp of salt, and what, a couple TB of sugar? Then you add 1/2 cup of milk, but it might be whole milk or 1% of who knows. Then you add a couple sticks of butter, and how much of that is fat and how much is water depends on the brand. Then you crack open 3 or 4 or 6 eggs, each of which is a different and unpredictable size. Even in a carton of "large" eggs there can be a wide variation -- the "large" simply refers to the weight of the entire dozen. Out of the twelve, you might pix six eggs that are actually mediums, or maybe they're jumbos.
So careful measuring won't get you an exact result, no matter what -- it's like measuring with a micrometer, marking it with chalk, and then cutting it with an axe.
Brioche is a little tricky in getting it all well incorporated without letting the butter melt. But it's forgiving in terms of quantities. 1 stick of butter is good, 2 sticks is better, more than that is perhaps too rich. 3 eggs is a fine start, 6 or 7 would be the max. Or, add 4 eggs and another 5 or 6 yolks. It'll be fine.
I bake bread regularly. I bake lots of brioche, and use brioche as the basis for sweet rolls. I don't use a scale. I don't even have one. I would if I baked wedding cakes, but for bread it's really not necessary. I can make a fantastic brioche without even measuring cups or spoons.
500 grams of flour is common amount for a recipe. It's 17.6 ounces, or a little more than one pound. One pound of bread flour is maybe a bit more than 3.5 cups. Many or most recipes call for 500g, or 1 lb, or 3.5 cups. But the weight per volume depends on the type of flour, and the moisture content, and how you scoop it.
The salt is off, but that's an error in both the recipe and the conversion. How much one teaspoon weighs depends on the type and brand, but for the most part, a teaspoon of salt is close to a quarter of an ounce. I'd be wary of any calculation that starts with 1 tsp = 5g. I know that's what many cheap measuring spoons say, but it's absurd. By my conversion, 65 grams = 2.3 ounces, or roughly 9 tsp, or 3 TB. Which is still way, way too much.
In bread, one pound of flour usually goes with 1 or 2 tsp of salt. I use 2 tsp in a regular old peasant bread. In a brioche, with all those eggs and unsalted butter, going to 1 TB would be fine, but I still stick with 2 tsp out of habit. So, whether you add 9 tsp, or 13, it's going to ruin your brioche.
You can carefully measure 500 grams of flour, and 2 tsp of salt, and what, a couple TB of sugar? Then you add 1/2 cup of milk, but it might be whole milk or 1% of who knows. Then you add a couple sticks of butter, and how much of that is fat and how much is water depends on the brand. Then you crack open 3 or 4 or 6 eggs, each of which is a different and unpredictable size. Even in a carton of "large" eggs there can be a wide variation -- the "large" simply refers to the weight of the entire dozen. Out of the twelve, you might pix six eggs that are actually mediums, or maybe they're jumbos.
So careful measuring won't get you an exact result, no matter what -- it's like measuring with a micrometer, marking it with chalk, and then cutting it with an axe.
Brioche is a little tricky in getting it all well incorporated without letting the butter melt. But it's forgiving in terms of quantities. 1 stick of butter is good, 2 sticks is better, more than that is perhaps too rich. 3 eggs is a fine start, 6 or 7 would be the max. Or, add 4 eggs and another 5 or 6 yolks. It'll be fine.
