French Bread Lab138 recipes

French Bread Lab · Calculator

Design your own French bread

The sliders start at the typical loaf: the median of 138 recipes for each ingredient, in grams per 100 g of flour. Move any of them within the range that 90% of recipes use (the 5th to the 95th percentile) and the grams update, with where your choice sits among the recipes and what that ingredient does.

This scales ratios; it is not a tested recipe. Each ingredient moves on its own against the flour, and a combination no recipe uses may not bake the way you expect. For the method, pan and oven, follow the real recipes nearest your numbers.

Flour

500 g, about 4 cups, makes one typical loaf.

Start from a recipe

Grams per 100 g of flour

  1. 335 g · 67%about 1 1/3 cups

    In the middle: 50% of recipes use more, 49% less.

    Around 65 to 75% for a baguette; wetter doughs give a more open crumb and a thinner, crisper crust.

  2. 10 g · 2%

    In the middle: 31% of recipes use more, 46% less.

    About 2% of the flour.

  3. 4 g · 0.8%

    In the middle: 49% of recipes use more, 47% less.

    Less yeast and a longer or overnight rise builds flavor; weeknight loaves use more.

  4. none · 0%

    None, like 71% of recipes.

    A true baguette has none; American French bread often adds a little.

  5. none · 0%

    None, like 79% of recipes.

    Traditional French bread uses none; a little oil or butter softens the crumb.

Your French bread

Your French bread in grams, with approximate volumes
IngredientGrams
Flour500 gabout 4 cups
Watermilk, buttermilk, yogurt, cream and water335 gabout 1 1/3 cups
Salt10 g
Yeast4 g
Sugarwhite sugar, brown sugar, honey and syrupsnone
Fatbutter, oil and shorteningnone
Total849 g

849 g in all from 500 g of flour, counting only the groups above.

Closest real recipe: Pauline bakt zelf stokbrood: lees hier haar recept! - Culy (culy.nl).

BakeThe median of 114 recipes is 450°F (230°C), most for 20 to 28 minutes at their own size. A bigger or smaller batch, or a different pan, changes the time.

The 3 real recipes nearest your numbers

Measured on water, salt, yeast, sugar and fat at once. These are published, tested recipes: follow one for its method, pan and timing, or load its percentages and adjust from there.

  1. 1

    Pauline bakt zelf stokbrood: lees hier haar recept! - Culy · culy.nl

    water 66% · salt 1.9% · yeast 0.9% · sugar 0% · fat 0%

  2. 2

    Stokbrood maken · uitpaulineskeuken.nl

    water 66% · salt 1.9% · yeast 0.9% · sugar 0% · fat 0%

  3. 3

    Fougasse. Pan francés · cocina-casera.com

    water 68% · salt 1.9% · yeast 0.6% · sugar 0% · fat 0%

How the calculator works

Every recipe is reduced to baker's percentages: grams of each ingredient group per 100 g of flour. The starting point is the median of all 138 recipes for each group separately, so no single recipe is exactly the starting loaf. Grams are your flour weight times each percentage, rounded to the nearest 5 g above 50 g and the nearest gram or half gram below.

“More than 80% of recipes” counts the recipes with strictly less of that ingredient per gram of flour. The nearest recipes are measured on every ingredient at once, each scaled by how much recipes vary on it, so a wide-ranging ingredient does not outweigh a narrow one.

Only the groups listed are counted. Vanilla, spices, mix-ins and toppings are left out unless they have their own slider. Volumes are approximate: flour at 125 g a cup, sugar 200 g, butter or oil 225 g, milk and other liquids 240 g.