Bread baking per app – enjoy great home-made bread every day

Falk Wienhold from Berlin, Germany, has used Open as App to create an app for bread baking from an Excel sheet he created. Very simple, without programming. His app helps hobby bakers to mix and match their recipes and still achieve a good result. Here is the story of Falk’s project.

From bread to app

Falk Wienhold likes to bake bread. Even before Corona lockdown and home office, the Berlin native has dedicated himself to baking bread and has learned more and more. Blogs and books like Chad Robertson’s were a great help to him in this. Today he makes sourdough bread himself as if made by a baker, but very individually. In the meantime, he even experiments with different flour combinations and ingredients—all in the style of baker Chad Robertson.

The smell, the quality time, the calmness, and of course, the rewarding result have done it to him. Baking bread is not only a relaxing leisure activity for him, but Falk also likes to give away home-baked goods. By now, he has infected the whole family with his hobby – including his Dad.

A bread-baking app guide as a gift

Because mixing and varying ingredients require a certain amount of know-how and care in calculating the quantities, Falk wants to give his father a guide – homemade as a birthday present. First, Falk thinks of a book. But the printed book form or a PDF is not suitable because there are so many variations and dependencies, and bringing this into paper format is too complicated.

Falk briefly considers an Excel or Google Sheets file, but these are not attractive enough visually and do not work so well on the smartphone. A laptop is not practical in the kitchen when baking. Falk has a tool in mind that is easy and quick to use, preferably an app: a user-friendly app for making bread that allows you to quickly lookup what you need and in what quantity. And this is how “Breadli” was born.

Falk’s project – an app for baking bread

After some research, it becomes clear that the hobby baker does not want to learn to code. A pure web app or mobile website, however, does not support the necessary functionality, for example, the interactive calculation of ingredients from Excel or Google Sheets. Researching “convert Excel into App,” he comes across Open as App and starts – like when baking his bread – to experiment. He creates his first app, and it works just fine.

For his first Brotli bread baking app, he loads his file into the Open as App cloud. He could also link it from Dropbox or another hosting provider. He immediately sees his Excel worksheet in the data analysis. He selects calculation as the app type. Alternatively, the list type is also offered, but the primary function of the app should be to calculate the correct ingredient quantities.

After choosing the app type, he selects the calculation fields that are important to him and continues. He does not yet take care of the design. In the large editing area of the Open as App portal, he sees the preview of his app. The data formats, such as percent, gram, or kilogram, have been recognized and are displayed in the app preview.

And now…?

Falk is gradually expanding his Excel sheet to include even more functions for his bread-baking app, and he is adapting the design. He adds selection menus and interdependent filters. These can also be easily added to the app in the App Portal of Open as App.

“I found Open as App pretty easy to use. Once you’re a bit familiar with the App Wizard, creating an app from Excel is quite fast. Anyone can use it to create apps with a lot of features.”

Falks Wienhold, bread baking app creator

How the Breadli app for baking bread works

The Breadli app from Berlin gets top marks not only from Falk’s dad, but also from other users and testers among Falk’s family and friends. The bread baking app is straightforward to use and saves experienced bakers a lot of time. On the start page of the app, you can enter the amount of bread you want to make in grams. Then you select the types of flour, combinations, and other ingredients and their ratio to each other. On the second page, you get the correspondingly necessary quantities. If the selected ingredients or proportions are not suitable, the app will make a recommendation.

– Click here to open the bread-making app on Android, iOS, and the web: https://oaa.app.link/launch-app-487faf63-32ea-44ef-9806-8e9bb3f95897

– Here you can open the app directly in the web client: https://www.openasapp.net/portal#!/client/app/487faf63-32ea-44ef-9806-8e9bb3f95897

Falk’s tip: You don’t have to get up early to make bakery-style bread 😊

Falk has another valuable tip for all those who have caught fire by now. Sourdough needs long rest periods. No wonder that bakers who take their craft seriously usually have to start at 2 am. If you want your “baking” hobby to remain relaxed, here is a schedule from Falk for a bread with a “hobby baker schedule”:

– 8 pm on day 1: Refresh leaven

– 9 am. Day 2: Mix all ingredients and let the dough rest

– 8 pm: Form bread and let it rest again

– 9 am Day 3: Preheat the oven and bake the bread until crispy brown

The quantities in the app are calculated in such a way that you only need to be active every 12 hours, e.g., always in the morning and evening. The schedule is adapted from a book by Lutz Geissler.  Falk always starts on Friday evening.

The way to your own bread and your own app

Anyone enthusiastic about baking bread is welcome to get the bread-making app “Breadli” on their mobile phone via Open as App. Falk is happy to share his app with fellow bakers. However, for beginners, he recommends Chad Robertson’s book for sourdough bread as an addition, which has valuable tips and good recipes for bread baking.

So now, if you feel like baking bread go on a search for your favorite recipes and bread baking tips, get Falk’s app, and get started. Here you can find some links with recipes, tips, and tricks:

• Helpful links for sourdough bread baking at home
• A list of great sourdough cookbooks for bread baking
• A great bread baking guide from the tasteofhome.com

If you want to share your ideas like an app, you can register for free at www.openasapp.com and create an app just like Falk.