Sourdough Bread

tommasofontanella

I've been trying to figure out the amount of calories in a homemade sourdough bread I make every weekend. The recipe I follow is this one: https://www.theperfectloaf.com/fifty-fifty-whole-wheat-sourdough-bread/

I'm not sure how I should calculate the calories per slice. If I enter all of the ingredients it comes out almost to 200calories per slice (and I'm talking about really small ones) so that makes me think I've been doing something wrong.

Has anyone had a similar experience/recipe for this?

Thanks

kommodevaran

You should be able to calculate calories per slice by weighing and adding up calories for all the ingredients, and either weighing the finished product and then weigh each slice, or by dividing by number of slices. The recipe yields two loaves - are you sure you didn't just calculate calories as if one loaf?

tommasofontanella

Yea I actually know I can make 8 slices from each loaf, and each slice I usually split in two. So I took half of the ingredients, added them up for a 600gr loaf and made that total divided by 16. Maybe I should weight the final product..

tommasofontanella

Crazyravr

Won't I go crazy having to weight every slice everytime? It's my breakfast everyday and I can't think of weighing that every single morning

JeromeBarry1

The starter is 50% flour and 50% water, so once you have the weight of the starter you divide by 2 and that's the weight of flour. Then you add the weight of all the ingredients you put in the dough and you'll have something close to 2000 grams total and then your recipe will have something close to 2000 servings with each serving equal to 1 gram. Weigh each slice and even if it's variable your food diary calculates the calories correctly because you did the recipe correctly.

Example: see my diary for my lunch today. The slice of bread was 31 grams and the recipe counted all the weight of every ingredient except water. I don't count the water as part of the weight because I figure that 45 minutes at 450 degrees F will eliminate all the water.

tommasofontanella

JeromeBarry1 wrote: »

The starter is 50% flour and 50% water, so once you have the weight of the starter you divide by 2 and that's the weight of flour. Then you add the weight of all the ingredients you put in the dough and you'll have something close to 2000 grams total and then your recipe will have something close to 2000 servings with each serving equal to 1 gram. Weigh each slice and even if it's variable your food diary calculates the calories correctly because you did the recipe correctly.

Thanks that's a good pint, didn't think of considering each serving to 1 gram. Thanks a lot!

Azercord

@crazyravr with a bread slicer box and a good knife you can slice a homemade loaf of bread into even slices +/- 2 grams pretty easily. Most ceramic loaf pans make a very square loaf.

Tacklewasher

tommasofontanella wrote: »

Crazyravr

Won't I go crazy having to weight every slice everytime? It's my breakfast everyday and I can't think of weighing that every single morning

How long does a loaf last you? If it's a week or so, then I would just count it by slice knowing that if I'm under one day I'll be over another, but by the time I've eaten the whole loaf I'll be good. But I try to focus more on my weekly calories rather than daily anyway.

kimny72

crazyravr wrote: »

tommasofontanella wrote: »

Crazyravr

Won't I go crazy having to weight every slice everytime? It's my breakfast everyday and I can't think of weighing that every single morning

Well you either want to be accurate or keep on estimating the choice is yours. There is no way you can divide a load of brad into EVEN slices that will weight the same.

To be fair if he's the only one eating it, as long as he has the calories of the loaf accurate, he can log by slice and it will all even out by the end of the week.

OP, sourdough can actually be pretty calorie dense. Many commercial sourdoughs I've seen were 150 cals per slice.

chrissgarvin

I bake my own bread as well, and have a couple of observations:

-I consistently slice my sandwich bread into 18 slices per loaf, so I can divide my recipe accordingly. I entered flour, butter, and salt, and didn't worry about the water. Alternatively, as suggested above, compute calories "per batch" then weigh the finished loaves, then weigh slices and divide. (If a "batch" of 2 loaves has, say, 2200cal, and weighs 1800gm, then your product has 2200/1800=1.22cal/gm. Remember to do this every time you bake, since finished weight will differ based on humidity, bake time, etc.

-"Artisan" breads definitely are calorie-dense. A 2lb batch of dough (yields 3 baguettes or 8 hamburger buns) has 1900cal...so ~240cl per roll. My homemade sandwich bread is >150cal/slice, so I cut to 1 piece of toast with my bacon and eggs. I don't think you're doing anything wrong, you're just seeing how many calories hide in bread!

tommasofontanella

kimny72 wrote: »

crazyravr wrote: »

tommasofontanella wrote: »

Crazyravr

Won't I go crazy having to weight every slice everytime? It's my breakfast everyday and I can't think of weighing that every single morning

Well you either want to be accurate or keep on estimating the choice is yours. There is no way you can divide a load of brad into EVEN slices that will weight the same.

To be fair if he's the only one eating it, as long as he has the calories of the loaf accurate, he can log by slice and it will all even out by the end of the week.

OP, sourdough can actually be pretty calorie dense. Many commercial sourdoughs I've seen were 150 cals per slice.

O I know! I'm avoiding commercial breads, it's all done homemade from me, including the starter and milling fresh grains for flour!

tommasofontanella

chrissgarvin wrote: »

I bake my own bread as well, and have a couple of observations:

-I consistently slice my sandwich bread into 18 slices per loaf, so I can divide my recipe accordingly. I entered flour, butter, and salt, and didn't worry about the water. Alternatively, as suggested above, compute calories "per batch" then weigh the finished loaves, then weigh slices and divide. (If a "batch" of 2 loaves has, say, 2200cal, and weighs 1800gm, then your product has 2200/1800=1.22cal/gm. Remember to do this every time you bake, since finished weight will differ based on humidity, bake time, etc.

-"Artisan" breads definitely are calorie-dense. A 2lb batch of dough (yields 3 baguettes or 8 hamburger buns) has 1900cal...so ~240cl per roll. My homemade sandwich bread is >150cal/slice, so I cut to 1 piece of toast with my bacon and eggs. I don't think you're doing anything wrong, you're just seeing how many calories hide in bread!

Ok that makes me feel better, mine was around 200 so then I shouldnt freak out..

lynn_glenmont

JeromeBarry1 wrote: »

The starter is 50% flour and 50% water, so once you have the weight of the starter you divide by 2 and that's the weight of flour. Then you add the weight of all the ingredients you put in the dough and you'll have something close to 2000 grams total and then your recipe will have something close to 2000 servings with each serving equal to 1 gram. Weigh each slice and even if it's variable your food diary calculates the calories correctly because you did the recipe correctly.

Example: see my diary for my lunch today. The slice of bread was 31 grams and the recipe counted all the weight of every ingredient except water. I don't count the water as part of the weight because I figure that 45 minutes at 450 degrees F will eliminate all the water.

Well, you're figuring wrong. Post-baked sourdough bread is about one-third water by weight.

https://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/foods/show/5586?manu=&fgcd=Baked Products&ds=Standard Reference


OP, my very rough back-of-the-envelope calculations is giving me about 33 quarter-cups* of flour (at roughly 30 g flour per quarter-cup), and a quarter cup of wheat flour is about 100 kcal (sometimes a little more for different varieties, but let's keep the arithmetic easy), so about 3300 kcal for the whole recipe, but you said you only made half the recipe, so 1650 for the loaf, which if you slice it into eight slices and then cut each slice in half, it should be just a little bit more than 100 kcal per half slice. You said 200 cal per slice in your OP -- were you talking about full slices there, even though you talked about only eating a half slice at a time later?

Also, if you're the only one who will be eating the bread, and weighing it is a pain for you (I don't get that, because I weigh just about everything, and it's easy -- you put the plate or bowl on the scale, and tare between items, and you've got all the numbers), I don't see why dividing by the number of slices to get your serving size should be a problem. You're still consuming all the calories in the loaf eventually.

*I think about flour in quarter cups, because that's usually the serving size on the labels, which generally give both volume and grams, so that's what I use when I want to convert a recipe with volume measures to grams, which is how I measure in baking since long before I started counting calories on MFP.

DX2JX2

As stated above, since you're making it yourself it's easiest and most accurate to calculate the total calories put into the recipe, then weigh the whole loaf after baking and figure out your calories per serving/slice from there.

When I'm OK with less than precise measurements, then I usually just go with an estimate of ~100 calories per ounce for homemade bread. Unfortunately, the home made breads I like to make tend to be pretty dense (in a good way) and the calories add up pretty quickly.

It sucks but crappy commercial bread is so much easier for calorie tracking!

Dreamcrusher16

Find a bread in the store that's similar to yours and scan that