Need input on baked goods calculator

[Michael Ohene]

Hey guys,

Some of you may remember me...Briefly, I just finished a chart that intuitively and concisely maps all baked goods (cookies, bread, brownies, etc.) and I also wrote a calculator to calculate hydrations, perform conversions, and basically any procedure you would ever want to perform on a recipe and then some. The chart can be used to pre-screen recipes instead of relying on reviews. I know...heresy, but that's why I do these things, to be unorthodox.

Anyway, I would love to get some constructive feedback on this. The web tool is located at: http://www.whatsthesequency.com/cakey.php

Enjoy it, bookmark it, tell your spouse and colleagues about it.

Best,

Michael O.

[Rodi]

Could use heavy cream as an item, looks interesting.

[Special K]

No yeast?

[Michael Ohene]

Correct, no yeast. Are you talking about adding dry yeast. And in what capacity?

How would adding yeast as an option help? What calculations do people need to perform on yeast? Converting from ounce to grams?

As far as yeast's exclusion from the recipe analyzer, that was done because I couldn't justify adding an ingredient with such a little weight/mass contribution to the menu.

As far as heavy cream, I can definitely add that.

-Michael O.

Edited August 2, 2010 by Michael Ohene (log)

[tino27]

A helpful conversation for yeast is converting from fresh cake yeast -> active dry yeast -> instant yeast (in grams).

If I want to bake bread and my recipe calls for 20 grams of fresh yeast, it'd be swell to know that I only need 7 grams if all I have on hand is instant yeast.

[Michael Ohene]

Thanks for your input guys. I didn't add the cake yeast because most of the existing items in the current calculator have some bearing on the overall weight. Heavy cream, is still on the sidelines.

I did receive other suggestions and have now added baker's percentages and hydration calculations with their conversions.

How is this calculator different than the gagillion calculators out there so far?

1. Has an accurate method for spotting good AND bad recipes for all baked goods. For example, you can determine whether a recipe you saw in a magazine will turn out without baking it.

2. It converts multiple ingredients at a time with the press of a button.

3. You can calculate hydration from items with different units (e.g grams flours and dl water)

4. Built-in conversion calculator with hydration calculations. For example, you can specify 25% of 100% hydration starter, 400 grams bread flour, and 1 cups water

Why hasn't this been done before? Take the 100% hydration starter option, integrating this into a program requires tons of calculations and programming, so does every thing else.

I would like to hear what you think about this once again. I have not tested everything so tell me about all the glitches.

Michael O.

Baking Calculator