If you know the factors that affect the flour, you can control said factors, thus predict your results based on such factors, more or less a measurable margin of error. Ergo, baking is precisely an exact science.
Random sampling flour batches. And you’d think I’m joking. But no, this is exactly how we invented cookies. Cookies were baker’s experimental tool to test their flour and, by ovserving the cookie, predict what they needed to change in their bread recipes to produce the exact result they wanted.
Did you make that up yourself, or did someone else actually get you to fall for that? Testing bread flour has nothing to do with the creation of the cookie.
The story might be apocryphal, but bakers indeed do use cookies to test proportions of ingredients. You’re not going to waste a whole pound of flour just to see the effect of more or less butter in a particular recipe. You do a little bit and bake them in cookie proportions. Specially when you have to make several hundred pounds of cake at a time, you can’t afford to err on the measurements, and you do need to know variations in the flour.
If you know the factors that affect the flour, you can control said factors, thus predict your results based on such factors, more or less a measurable margin of error. Ergo, baking is precisely an exact science.
How would you find out those factors about wheat?
Random sampling flour batches. And you’d think I’m joking. But no, this is exactly how we invented cookies. Cookies were baker’s experimental tool to test their flour and, by ovserving the cookie, predict what they needed to change in their bread recipes to produce the exact result they wanted.
Did you make that up yourself, or did someone else actually get you to fall for that? Testing bread flour has nothing to do with the creation of the cookie.
The story might be apocryphal, but bakers indeed do use cookies to test proportions of ingredients. You’re not going to waste a whole pound of flour just to see the effect of more or less butter in a particular recipe. You do a little bit and bake them in cookie proportions. Specially when you have to make several hundred pounds of cake at a time, you can’t afford to err on the measurements, and you do need to know variations in the flour.
Dude, you’re so wrong about all of this. Bakers typically use the same ingredients from the same providers. So they know what to expect.
And when it comes to a dough or batter, a baker can tell by look and feel if the proportions are off and will adjust accordingly.