BakerybenchProduction
Seeded Whole-Grain Rolls Formula in Baker's Percent
These whole-wheat rolls use a sourdough stage, a biga and a soaker of oats and seeds. The home recipe lists each of these separately. For production you need one overall formula, so this page adds them together and shows the maths.
The formula
| Ingredient | Baker's % | Per 500 g flour |
|---|---|---|
| Whole wheat flour, total | 100 % | 500 g |
| Water, total | 91.3 % | 456.5 g |
| Salt | 2.4 % | 12 g |
| Fresh yeast | 2 % | 10 g |
| Honey | 1.6 % | 8 g |
| Rolled oats | 10.9 % | 54.5 g |
| Sunflower seeds | 6.6 % | 33 g |
| Flax seeds | 4.4 % | 22 g |
| Total | 219.2 % | 1,096 g |
The overall formula adds the sourdough stage, the biga, the soaker and the main dough together. All the flour is whole wheat flour: 450 g in the pre-doughs plus about 7.5 g from the starter, 457.5 g in total. Water is 417.5 g, salt 11 g, fresh yeast 9 g, honey 7.5 g, oats 50 g, sunflower seeds 30 g and flax seeds 20 g, a dough of 1,002.5 g. Hydration is water ÷ flour × 100 = 417.5 ÷ 457.5 = 91.3 %.
Scaled to bakery batches
| Ingredient | 1 kg flour | 10 kg flour | 25 kg flour |
|---|---|---|---|
| Whole wheat flour, total | 1,000 g | 10,000 g | 25,000 g |
| Water, total | 913 g | 9,130 g | 22,825 g |
| Salt | 24 g | 240 g | 600 g |
| Fresh yeast | 20 g | 200 g | 500 g |
| Honey | 16 g | 160 g | 400 g |
| Rolled oats | 109 g | 1,090 g | 2,725 g |
| Sunflower seeds | 66 g | 660 g | 1,650 g |
| Flax seeds | 44 g | 440 g | 1,100 g |
| Dough | 2,192 g | 21,920 g | 54,800 g |
How the numbers are calculated
- Add the percentages. 100 + 91.3 + 2.4 + 2 + 1.6 + 10.9 + 6.6 + 4.4 = 219.2 %. Total dough weight is always flour weight × 2.192.
- From the dough you want to the flour you need. Flour = dough weight ÷ 2.192. For 40 rolls of 95 g you need 3,800 g of dough, so 3,800 ÷ 2.192 = 1,734 g of flour.
- From the flour to each ingredient. Ingredient = flour × percent ÷ 100. With 1,734 g of flour: water 1,583 g, salt 42 g, fresh yeast 35 g, honey 28 g, rolled oats 189 g, sunflower seeds 114 g, flax seeds 76 g.
- Pieces from a batch. 10 kg of flour makes 21,920 g of dough. At 95 g per piece that is 230 pieces.
You can do the same with the baker's percentage calculator: enter the percentages above and tick flour and liquid.
Decoration
Decoration is part of the formula. The recipe is only complete with the topping, so the topping belongs in the recipe and in the costing. It is not part of the dough weight or the baker's percent above, and in many bakeries it is forgotten in the costing.
- How it is applied: the dough pieces are sprayed lightly with water and then rolled in the seeds. Water alone is the usual way to make the seeds stick.
- Seed mix: the topping is usually a seed mix made in advance, for example equal parts of flax seed, poppy seed, pumpkin seed and sesame (1:1:1:1). Any seeds the bakery has on hand can be used in different mixes. Rolled oats work too.
- Whole grains: pre-treated grains such as puffed wheat, rye or spelt kernels are available. They look like whole grains but are already cooked or puffed, so they are good to bite into and keep their shape in the oven. Untreated whole grains are too hard to eat as a topping.
- Single-seed rolls: a pumpkin seed roll gets only pumpkin seeds on top, a sesame roll only sesame. Several kinds of sesame can be mixed.
- Amount: the surface should be fully covered and look good. The weight per roll depends on the product and on how much the bakery wants to apply, so there is no fixed figure. Weigh what your bakery uses per tray and put it into the costing.
- Stronger glue: for toppings that tend to fall off, starch-based adhesive solutions are on the market. Which one to use is up to the bakery.
In the bakery
- Pre-doughs: the whole-wheat sourdough stage ripens for 12 to 16 hours at room temperature, and the biga is kept cool until it goes into the main dough, as in the home recipe. The soaker (oats, sunflower and flax seeds with hot water) swells for at least 6 hours, better 8 hours, at room temperature.
- Dough temperature and mixing: as for other rolls, a dough temperature of 22 to 25 °C (21 to 22 °C in summer, a little warmer in winter), set with the mixing water, and ice instead of water when the water is too warm. In a Diosna mixer, 3 minutes slow and 5 minutes fast, because the soaker is already in the dough. Depending on the machine and the flour the fast stage may need 6 minutes, so adjust the second stage if necessary. Use only crushed, slightly crumbly flake ice, never hard ice, which damages the dough structure and the gluten network.
- Rest and proof: a bench rest of 120 minutes after mixing. The proof of the dough pieces is only 15 minutes if the rolls go straight into the oven. If the pieces go through the cooler, the proof is longer, about 45 minutes, and the baking time has to be adjusted.
- Baking: dough pieces of 95 g, baked at 180 °C in a rack oven for about 20 minutes with plenty of steam. The author has not baked these in a large oven. His estimate is a lower temperature and about 15 minutes, but this depends on the oven, so test it. Steam routine: give steam in the first minute, then pull the draft and let the steam escape. The rest of the baking time runs without steam. This applies to rolls and breads alike.
- Cooling: let the rolls cool a little before you handle or pack them. The starch network is not yet stable while the crumb is hot.
Things to watch
- Weigh salt and yeast on a scale with a suitable resolution, especially for small batches.
- The home recipe gives ranges for three ingredients. This page uses the middle of each range: 15 g of sourdough starter (10 to 20 g), 7.5 g of honey (5 to 10 g) and 40 g of extra water added at the end (30 to 50 g).
- The starter is assumed to have 100 % hydration (equal parts flour and water). Its flour and water are counted in the totals.
- Rolled oats, sunflower seeds and flax seeds are listed as separate ingredients and are not counted as flour. The total hydration of 91.3 % includes the 100 g of soaker water. Without the soaker water it is 69.4 %. Always say which way you count.
- Most common faults in the bakery: soaker swelling time not kept; dough too warm, so the rolls look poor and are hard to process; too much mixing water, or water not adjusted to the flour; dough pieces over-proofed when handled; pieces kept too long in the freezer, cooler or proofer; oven temperature not turned down; rolls baked too dark; rolls taken out of the oven too early or too late.
- Dull surface: dough too warm, trays or proofing carriers dusted too heavily, a dry proof, or too little steam. Keep the dough cooler, dust less, raise the humidity in the proof and give enough steam.
- Hollow, pulled-in bottom: proof too full or baking temperature too low, especially when baking on paper or foil. Load a little earlier and raise the temperature.
- Seeds and grains not soaked long enough: loose crumb, cracks in the crumb and too many unswollen grains. Keep the soaker time and prefer cut grains to whole hard ones.