In baker's math, flour is always 100% and everything else is a percentage of it. Given the total dough weight and the formula's total percentage, work backward to the flour you need.
1,700 g of dough at a 170% total formula needs 1,000 g of flour — the anchor every other ingredient scales from.
The example
Three doughs, each with a target dough weight and total formula percentage.
| A | B | C | D | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dough | Dough (g) | Total % | Flour (g) |
| 2 | Sourdough | 1,700 | 170 | 1,000 |
| 3 | Baguette | 1,620 | 162 | 1,000 |
| 4 | Brioche | 1,800 | 225 | 800 |
The formula
Divide the dough by the formula total, expressed as a multiple:
How it works
Baker's percentages all add up relative to flour:
- Flour is 100%. Water, salt, levain, and the rest are each a percent of the flour.
C2/100turns the total formula percentage (e.g. 170) into a multiple (1.70) of the flour weight.- Dividing the total dough by that multiple returns the flour weight;
ROUNDtidies it to whole grams.
With flour known, every other ingredient is flour times its own percentage — water at 70% is Flour*0.70.
Try it: interactive demo
Enter the target dough weight and the total formula percentage.
Variations
Scale any ingredient
Once flour is known, each ingredient is flour times its baker's percentage.
Pitfalls & errors
The total formula percentage includes the 100% flour. Forgetting it (using 70% instead of 170%) overstates the flour badly.
Add up every ingredient's percentage — flour, water, salt, levain, fats — to get the total formula percent for this formula.
Practice workbook
Frequently asked questions
Why is the total percentage over 100?
How do I find the other ingredient weights?
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