"Whole" vs "All" (Heel vs Alle)
When baking, you often need to distinguish between an entire single item (the whole cake) and every item in a group (all the cookies). Dutch uses two different words for this: heel and alle.
Use heel (or hele) to mean "the whole" or "the entire" when referring to a singular noun. Because it functions as a regular adjective, it takes the standard -e ending when following a definite article (de or het).
| The whole dough is still very sticky. | Het hele deeg is nog erg plakkerig. |
| I was rolling out the whole dough on the kitchen counter. | Ik was het hele deeg op het aanrecht aan het uitrollen. |
Use alle to mean "all" or "all the". It is used directly before plural nouns to refer to a complete group. Unlike in English, you do not need to add the word "de" after alle—"all the pastries" is simply alle gebakjes.
| All the airy pastries were not cooling down yet. | Alle luchtige gebakjes waren nog niet aan het afkoelen. |
| You have to roll out all the pieces of dough after rising. | Je moet alle stukken deeg na het rijzen uitrollen. |
Putting Them Together
It is common to use both quantifiers in the same sentence to contrast a single whole object with a plural group of objects.
| I need the whole baking tray for all the cookies. | Ik heb de hele bakplaat nodig voor alle koekjes. |
| I want to bake all the cookies and the whole pie. | Ik wil alle koekjes en de hele taart bakken. |
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