Pooja Reddy

16 Days Ago · 84 views

how much dough for a 500g loaf tin? recipe maths is defeating me

Baking & Technique scalingloafbreadportioning

Want to sell standard 500g loaves. Do I portion 500g of dough? Something tells me the oven steals some weight but I can't find a straight answer on how much extra to add.

2 replies

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2 replies

Truffle Nation Team Truffle Nation 16 Days Ago

Your instinct is right - the oven takes its cut in steam. Bread loses roughly 10% of its weight in baking (moisture evaporating), a bit more for longer bakes and crusty styles, a bit less for soft covered breads.

The working maths: for a 500g FINISHED loaf, portion about 550g of dough. Weigh one finished cooled loaf from your actual recipe and oven, and you'll have your personal loss number in one bake - then it's just target ÷ (1 − your loss %) forever.

And the leftover 40-50g question every batch produces: collect the odd remainders into dinner rolls alongside the loaves, or fold them into the next portioning. Selling by labelled weight means the finished loaf should meet what the label promises - portion generous, never short.

One scale, one test bake, and the maths stops being maths and becomes habit 🙂

Gurpreet Kaur 15 Days Ago

"the oven takes its cut in steam" - finally an explanation for why my "500g" loaves kept weighing 460 and making me look like a scam artist 😅

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