Why You Shouldn’t Always Believe Online Recipes
I recently wanted to make sandwich rolls, apparently forgetting that I have a recipe for Hoagie Rolls here already. (No one said I was smart.) Anyway, it’s always good to try other things sometimes.
I found a site that had a recipe and it didn’t look right to be but I thought I’d try it. Mid-construction I knew something was wrong. The recipe called for 2.5 cups of water (600 grams), 1/4 cup of oil, and only 6 cups of flour (720 grams). Also 20g of yeast. That meant it was 83% hydration which is about what ciabatta rolls call for. I let that soup swirl around in my stand mixer for awhile without ever coming together real well. I’m assuming they measure their flour by volume and are packing it down really well, probably without intending to.
I ended up adding another 150 grams of flour to save it. They were good.
I went to the recipe to post a comment. At the same time, I noticed that almost all of the other comments were on the same day or within a day or two of each other. And said much the same thing. And were all 5-stars. I added my comment about the hydration and needing weights and giving it only 3 stars.
I went back later to look and (a) my comment wasn’t there and (b) comments were now closed.
Easy to have all 5-star recipes if you delete comments.