"Sky" > wrote in message
...
> boulanger wrote:
>>
>> "Sky" > wrote in message
>> ...
>> > boulanger wrote:
>> >>
>> >> "Alan Calan" > wrote in message
>> >> ...
>> >> >I bought one of those on Sunday in anticipation of the snow storm. I
>> >> > also wanted to use up a William Sonoma credit that I had. So, what
>> >> > went wrong:
>> >> >
>> >> > I followed the recipe for egg pasta provided in the manual of the
>> >> > roller/cutters. It said 3.5 cups of flour (I used 125 grams x 3.5
>> >> > or
>> >> > 437 grams), 3 eggs, 1/2 teaspoon of salt and one tablespoon of
>> >> > water.
>> >> > It made very dry dough that would not come together. So I started
>> >> > adding water and I'd bet all in all I added close to a 1/2 a cup or
>> >> > more.
>> >> >
>> >>
>> >> That's the trouble with stupid cup recipes! They never tell you how
>> >> to
>> >> fill
>> >> the cup and the weight can vary from 100g to >130g.
>> >> The recipe I have is:
>> >> 300g flour
>> >> 3 eggs
>> >> 1 tsp salt
>> >
>> > Most definitely! When baking/making stuff like bread & pasta - it's
>> > much better to go by weight!!! I'm learning this the hard way, too!
>> >
>> > Sky, who's yet to figure out a good baguette
>> >
>> Have you tried Maggie Glazer's recipe? Apparently, it's very good but
>> I've
>> not tried it. The classic French dough is 60% hydration, i.e., 60g water
>> to
>> every 100g of flour but their flour is softer than Canadian and US bread
>> flours that require more water.
>
> !!!! Oh gosh, more "science" to learn 
So far, I've been able to
> make fairly good bread, and other times I get less than satisfactory
> results (sigh). No, I've not tried that particular recipe you've
> mentioned. Can you kindly provide a website or link to it? I'd greatly
> appreciate it. When making bread, I've learned measuring by weight
> provides better results than when measuring by volume.
>
You've made the most important decision!!!
The book I mentioned is by Maggie Glezer, "Artisan Baking" (originally
Artisan Baking Across North America).
Now a paperback, ISBN: 13: 978-1-57965-291-3
There are many other good bread-baking books and most are summarised in the
FAQs of alt.bread.recipes where there is a bunch of very friendly and
helpful people. The Glezer book isn't the only one on the subject but the
Acme Bakery baguette recipe has been tried by others on a.b.r and is
reckoned to be good.
http://abrfaq.info/faq/88 click on Resources for an extensive book list. I
have many of them and if you are interested I could recommend some (perhaps
by e-mail) I take it that your address is not a spamtrap as mine is!
As for the science, the bakers percentage system is very easy to grasp and
allows you to scale the quantities of ingredients you need very easily. If
you are interested, I'll e-mail an explanation tomorrow (it's late, I'm
tired and I have an appointment tomorrow morning).
Best wishes