When It Comes to Bread, Less (Flour) Is More

When people who know about bread talk about bread, they often talk about ratios. A common ratio for bread is five to three, which importantly refers to weight (not cup) measurements — so 500 grams of flour to 300 grams of water, for example. But according to Adam Leonti, baker-in-chief at Brooklyn Bread Lab, less flour is more, or rather more water is more, if your goal is to make bread with big, beautiful holes.

Leonti’s template for bread uses the following proportions: 1000 grams flour, 800 grams water, 30 grams bakers yeast, and 30 grams salt. “It’s going to feel really wet,” he explains, but that’s what you want. “The higher the water content, the bigger the holes.”

Because the dough will be stickier than you’re used to, Leonti suggests using a bench scraper to handle the dough.

Leonti says that the two most common ways people over-flour their bread is by using measuring cups instead of a scale and by using too much flour on their work surface.

“You want to take the flour and make it snow,” he says.