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Converting Favorite Recipes from Volume to Weight Measurements


Chris Amirault

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I grew up weighing the ingredients for baked goods on a metric scale and at some point in my childhood was tasked with converting the recipes to volume in order to be able to share recipes with cooks w/o scales. Everything still tasted wonderful though maybe not everyone's product tasted the same. Perhaps the difference between home cooks who want a tasty result, and commercial bakers who need to put out a consistent product is where the weight/volume issue becomes significantly critical.

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Many baking cookbook authors will tell you how *they* measure flour. I'll look at this, and then when I make a recipe from a cookbook the first time, I'll measure it their way into a bowl on my scale, and note how much that is in the recipe. After a few repetitions, or a few different recipes from the same book, it's usually possible to figure out how much a cup of flour weighs according to that particular cookbook. (Bonus: if you don't like what happens the first time, and it's something that seems related to the amount of flour, it's possible to add a little more or less and make adjustments that should carry through the rest of the cookbook if the author was consistent.

But anymore, I have enough baking books that if I'm buying a new one, it really needs to have mass measurements.

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MelissaH

Oswego, NY

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The weight of the flour can vary depending on the humidity, how "packed" the flour is when scooped out, and probably several other variables. In general, I recall that I've always used 5 oz (142 grams) as my "standard" cup of flour.

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Steven Howard Confections

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