CookBook Team
Cooking and baking guides
Reference guides for the techniques recipes mention but rarely explain. Each guide answers the question first, then gives the numbers, the sources and a calculator where one helps.
Bread and pizza
The maths of dough: how much water, how to count a starter and when to use a preferment.
- Dough hydration explained
What hydration means, how to calculate it and typical ranges for bread and pizza.
- Poolish, biga and levain compared
How the three preferments differ and how to count them in a formula.
- Baker's percentage calculator
Convert a recipe between grams and baker's percentages.
- Pizza dough calculator
Grams for every ingredient from dough ball weight and hydration.
Sugar and browning
Why food browns, how caramel develops and what each sugar syrup stage makes.
- Caramelization explained
When sugars brown, how colour and flavour change and how to control caramel.
- Maillard reaction vs caramelization
How the two browning reactions differ and how to get better browning.
- Sugar syrup stages and temperatures
Temperatures and cold-water tests from thread to hard crack.
Pastry and desserts
How classic pastries, meringues and ganache are built and why they behave as they do.
- Types of pastry compared
Shortcrust, sweet pastry, puff, rough puff, choux and filo side by side.
- French, Swiss and Italian meringue compared
Method, sugar ratio, temperature and uses of each meringue.
- Ganache ratio calculator
Chocolate to cream ratios for glaze, filling and truffles.
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Measurements
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Reuse and citation
Each guide lists its sources and ends with a ready-made citation. You can reuse the text and tables under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence (CC BY 4.0) when you credit CookBook and link to the guide.