It has been a while since I had my initial thoughts dealing with Bakers Percent and all that goes with it. Knowing that spreadsheets & baking are made for each other was one thing, however, figuring out the slightly complicated initial & overall Baker’s Percent did seem discouraging at first. Getting it onto a spreadsheet, even more so.
So, I asked myself an initial question? What if Bakers Percent was Re-Imagined so that it didn’t mean dividing the weight of each ingredient by the weight of the flour & then multiplying the resulting decimal form by 100 to convert it to a percentage?
Answer..... Enter only the weight of ingredients & allow a spreadsheet to self-calculate all the percentages involved.
To do that I’ll have to sort out a Detailed, Fully Formulated, Formatted, Self-Calculating Weight-To-Percentage Spreadsheet, taking into account.
- Ingredients, Formulas, Conversions, Entering & Extracting Data. Above all, what it looked like and how easy it would be to use.
Considering each the list seems endless, given the detail that is required to get the best from the spreadsheet it will need to include;
- Separate sections for Soakers, Sourdough/Levain, Preferments (Pâte Fermentée, Biga, Poolish, Sponge, etc.). Main recipe with a variety of flours, wet & dry additions.
- Formulas to calculate each ingredient's weight displayed as a percentage. A way of maintaining percentages throughout when increasing or decreasing Total Dough Weight.
- Conversions to save searching for; Yeast, Temperatures, Customary to Metric, Volumes, Bakeware, Recipe Ratios, Ingredient Water Content, Distribution ratios.
- Adding details, real times, rating, extra notes, methods, links,
- Viewing multiple recipes on one sheet, to add new, update old & compare numerous simultaneously.
- Selecting rather than typing. preload drop-downs for recipes, bakers and bakeware. A-Z sorting of additional entries beyond preloads.
- Use a tablet, pad, phone or printed paper layouts for method, workflow times & temperatures. Hydrations a gaggle of other info with non-essentials filtered
- Formatting, fonts, cells, display and anything else that comes to mind
This may take some time!!
