What is Baker's Percentage?

Let's use a real example: a 2-tier chocolate wedding cake. You mix a batch of chocolate cake batter using 500g of all-purpose flour as your base. That flour is always 100%. If your recipe calls for 400g butter, that's 80% of the flour weight. If it calls for 300g sugar, that's 60%. If it calls for 4 eggs (roughly 200g), that's 40%. These percentages stay true whether you're baking one 6-inch cake or scaling up to four 9-inch layers for a wedding rush. Why does this matter to your bottom line? Because baker's percentage keeps your recipes consistent across batch sizes. You're not converting 1.5 tablespoons of baking powder to cups and guessing—you're working in weight. A chocolate cake that costs $3.20 in ingredients at 500g flour will cost $6.40 at 1000g flour, and $9.60 at 1500g flour. No waste from over-measuring. No failed batches from under-measuring. That's money in your pocket. Baker's percentage also reveals which recipes are actually profitable. A dense chocolate torte using 80% butter (400g butter for 500g flour) costs way more per portion than a light vanilla sponge using 40% butter. When you see those percentages side by side, you can price accordingly. A customer asking for a "chocolate cake" isn't the same as a customer asking for a flourless chocolate torte—and your ingredient cost just proved it. The system works because flour is the backbone of most baked goods. It's the constant. Everything else scales with it. When you're pricing a last-minute phone order and a customer asks for a 10-inch round instead of an 8-inch, you don't recalculate from scratch. You know the percentages. You scale the flour weight. Everything else follows.