[Sca-cooks] Bread Puzzles

[David Friedman]

As both Bear and I observed, the weight given for the dark bread going 
into the oven is the same as for the dark bread coming out of the oven, 
which cannot be right. The obvious interpretation is scribal error. The 
number given is for one of the two figures and was accidentally copied 
for the other. My current guess is that it's the weight coming out, and 
that the weight going in should have the same ratio to the weight coming 
out as for the light bread. I'm in the process of doing one loaf of each 
based on that interpretation.

One number that I don't have but would find useful is the ratio of the 
weight of bread coming out of the oven to the weight of flour in the 
dough going in. I can measure it for my standard modern sourdough recipe 
next time I make it, but presumably someone, probably Bear, knows what a 
typical figure is.

This is fun. Part of what makes it fun is that we have three different 
kinds of constraint and are looking for an interpretation consistent 
with all of them:

1. The text from the trial.

2. The numbers from the trial--weight of dough going in, weight of bread 
coming out.

3. What actually works for making bread.

I think I have an interpretation that satisfies all three, but with some 
strain on the first—a not impossible reading, but not the most natural. 
Bear has a different interpretation.

-- 
David/Cariadoc
www.daviddfriedman.com
http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/