Should any liquid, or liquid-like ingredient, be included in the water proportion calculations for bread?

So I am just beginning on my bread making adventures and have been studying the concept of water to flour proportions for baking bread.
My question is about experimenting with other types of ingredients (e.g. replacing water with milk, etc.) and how to determine if what I'm doing is scientifically correct.
Should any ingredient that I add that is liquidy (I think I made up a word there) be calculated into the water % target?
So, if I start with a basic bread recipe that calls for 65% hydration and I decide I want to use water, eggs and sour cream do I weigh the eggs and sour cream and deduct their weight from what would have been the water weight at 65% hydration?
Starting recipe:
- 1kg of Flour
- 650ml water
New recipe with experimental ingredients substituting in as part of the hydration calculations:
- 1kg of flour
- 200g of egg
- 150g of sour cream
- 300ml water
Is this the correct approach when experimenting? Or, am I missing something key (e.g. sour cream's hydration is likely not equal to water's on a gram for gram basis, etc.). I'm looking for some guidance on how to best approach experimenting with recipes so that the experiments are at least based on sound bread making principles (rather than complete WAGs).
Thanks for any help or guidance!
Best Answer
It depends on how exact you feel you need to be.
Rough Approximation
As a general first order approximation, the following ingredients can all be treated essentially as water:
- Milk, butter milk
- Fruit juice
- Fruit puree
- Milk, cream, sour cream, creme fraiche and similar dairy products
- Even eggs
This is not perfectly accurate, of course, but for many applications it is close enough.
If you want to get more detailed and more accurate, you would have to find out a reasonable approximation what percentage, by weight, is actually water.
Dairy
For dairy products, like cream, this is fairly simple to do, as a second order approximation. Just deduct the percentage of fat and assume the rest is water. For example, whipping cream which is 36% fat (check the label) is going to be about 64% water. This is still an approximation as it does not consider sugars and minerals, but it is probably close enough for almost any non-industrial culinary use.
According to the IDFA (International Dairy Foods Association), sour cream is about 18% milk fat, so an approximation of 80% water would be quite reasonable.
Eggs
The University of Illinois provides the following information about eggs:
- Whole eggs—74% water
- Whites—88% water
- Yolks—48% water
Fruit
This PDF from the U. of Kentucky Extension provides composition information, including water percentage, for some common fruits. Most, with the notable exception of bananas, are in the mid-80 to mid-90% range. Bananas are about 75% water.
Other ingredients
For other ingredients, you would need to do some research to determine the typical percentage of water.
Example Calculation
Based on the following recipe (from your original question), using second order approximations, we conclude:
1kg of flour
200g of egg -- 74% water, so 148 g water
150g of sour cream -- 80% water, so 120 g water
300ml water -- 100% water, so 300 g water
--------------
568 g water
So this version of the recipe has a bakers percentage of about 57% hydration. This is a little lower than your original recipe.
In truth, this may not matter so much as a starting point, because you would adjust the dough by feel as well as hydration percentage.
Other effects
While hydration percentage is an important contributing factor to the quality of your loaves, remember, any time you add ingredients other than the basic four (flour, salt, water, yeast), the additional content of the ingredients are going to affect the structure, texture, crust, rise, and flavor of your final product.
Sugars, fats, and eggs will all significantly change the loaf, both by affecting the gluten development, and by influencing how the yeast grows.
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Does it make a difference what liquid you add when making bread?
Water vs.Milk changes bread recipes by producing a softer loaf, due to the milk fat content, which also gives bread a richer flavor. Bread made with milk browns more easily than bread made with water, as lactose or milk sugar will caramelize as it bakes.Why are liquids like water added to the bread mixture?
Liquid ingredients are important in bread making because they rehydrate and activate the yeast and bring together the flour and any other dry ingredients to make the dough.How do you calculate the percentage of water in bread?
Divide the weight of the water by the weight of the flour and then multiply the result by 100. For example, a recipe containing 1 1/4 cups of water (10 ounces) and 3 cups of all-purpose flour (15 ounces) will have a 67 percent (10/15 x 100 = 67) hydration level, indicating a moderately airy crumb.How does water content affect bread dough?
How does the amount of water affect bread? The amount of water affects the bonding of the gluten network. A high water content dough creates a more open crumb, whereas, dryer doughs provide a more close-knit network. There can be issues when the dough is too wet or too dry.Baker's Percentage \u0026 Dough Hydration Explained
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