What you need
To calculate how much bread dough fit’s your tin well you’ll need two things:
1. The actual volume of your tin
2. A magic number
The actual volume of your tin
To find out the volume of the space inside your tin, put the empty tin on a set of scales and make sure it is on zero.
Then fill the tin with water as close to the top as you can without spilling it and write the number in grams. Since 1g of water is the same as 1ml of water this number is the volume of your tin.
The Magic Number
Your magic number will be different depending on which type of dough you are making.
The magic number for White Bread is: 1.78
For 50/50 White and Wholemeal Bread is: 1.71
And for 100% Wholemeal Bread: 1.66
The formula
Now you have those two things we can work out an ideal dough size to fit your tin. The calculation is:
Actual Tin Volume (in grams) / Magic Number = Target Dough Weight (in grams)
For example
If my tin holds 1500g of water, and I’m making white bread my formula looks like this:
1500 / 1.78 = 842
842g of dough will fit nicely. 842g is my Target Dough Weight (more on how to reach this later)
Why this might not work…
…EXACTLY the same for you and what you can do about it
The amount of volume increase in your dough depends on many things like
· How strong your flour is.
· How much you’ve worked it and developed that strength.
· Which brand of flour you used.
· How warm it is today.
· How much water in your recipe.
· And many more…
That’s why the Magic Number changes the more wholemeal flour is used. Because the dough isn’t as strong as the white dough, and it won’t increase in volume as much, so we need more of it to fill the same space.
Make sense?
So then, the magic number becomes an idea, a good guide, that may need tweaking to find your sweet spot.
How to reach your target dough weighT
Let’s say I’m making a white bread dough:
500g Strong White Bread Flour
10g Salt
7g Dry Yeast
310g Water
15g Olive Oil
This makes a dough of 842g, perfect for my loaf tin above, that’s my Actual Dough Weight.
However, I want to bake a larger loaf in another tin I have with the volume of 1800g.
First I calculate my target dough weight using the magic number of 1.78.
1800 / 1.78 = 1011
1011g is my Target Dough Weight
To convert my recipe to make my target dough weight, the formula is an easy one:
Ingredient Quantity / Actual Dough Weight x Target dough weight =
New Ingredient Quantity
So for the flour:
500 / 842 x 1011 = 600
And the Salt:
10 / 842 x 1011 = 12
And so on, making the new recipe:
600g Strong White Bread Flour
12g Salt
8g Dry Yeast
372g Water
18g Olive Oil
(numbers rounded to the nearest gram)
Add all those up and my new actual dough weight is now 1010g. Pretty Close!
Bit Much?
Here’s what I ACTUALLY do.
I never actually do this.
Instead if I want to make a loaf to fit my larger tin, I’ll double my recipe knowing that I’ll easily cover it. Then after the first rest I’ll divide off 1011g for my loaf, and turn the rest into rolls or something else.
Give it a try and do what works for you ;-)