Comprehensive collections of by-weight recipes

[Kent Wang]

Why? See The Kitchen-Scale Manifesto.

Are there any websites or books that have a comprehensive collection of recipes by weight? Comprehensive like Joy of Cooking or Epicurious.

A Google search for "recipes by weight" turns up a bunch of stuff about weight loss.

I have Modernist Cuisine at Home (ebook) and it's pretty good but is not totally comprehensive; it doesn't cover any pastry. Perhaps the full Modernist Cuisine does.

BBC Good Food is mostly by weight but still uses tbsp and tsp for some minor ingredients like baking soda.

[Blether]

I've never heard anyone voice concern about the accuracy of tsp & tbsp measures generally in recipes - as opposed to measurements for more esoteric chemical ingredients, like nitrites in meat curing.

You probably know that (1) British imperial tablespoons are a different size to the 15ml standard (it's 18 or 18.5ml, IIRC), and (2) that the British custom in recipes is to use weights for non-liquid ingredients - in particular, never cups of flour, sugar or fats. This is kind of a general thought, but Amazon UK ships internationally.

Would you like specific British titles ? It wouldn't surprise me if even American titles are converted to weights in their British editions. Some years ago I learned the hard way to buy my own cookbooks (for shipping to me here in Asia) from Amazon UK, not Amazon US.

Edited February 16, 2014 by Blether (log)

[Lisa Shock]

Cook's Illustrated added weight-based measurement in 2003, they have a huge collection of recipes although they are behind a paywall.

All of the current professional books used by culinary schools use weight based measurement. They are perhaps a bit basic, but very comprehensive, and include: Professional Baking, Professional Cooking, The Professional Chef, Garde Manger, Baking and Pastry, The Professional Pastry Chef, and, The Advanced Professional Pastry Chef.

MC doesn't cover pastry really much at all. I think that's a separate future project.

I don't have a link off the top of my head, but, I have visited two big recipe sites hosted in India by large newspapers. They were just recipes submitted by readers, but, they all used weight-based measure for dry ingredients. Of course, it was all metric, but, I prefer metric and have my home kitchen set up with metric equipment.

[jmacnaughtan]

Most British-published cookbooks have recipes in weights, and all professional-level pastry books do too (if they don't, I'd be worried and put them back on the shelf as quickly as possible).

I imagine that any books translated from French would keep the metric weight measurements (or just buy them in French).

For pastry, although I'm not convinced by a lot of his desserts and recipes, Francisco Migoya only uses weights and gives recipes in metric, imperial and %.

Edited February 16, 2014 by jmacnaughtan (log)

[liuzhou]

Are there any websites or books that have a comprehensive collection of recipes by weight? Comprehensive like Joy of Cooking or Epicurious.

The BBC.

BBC Good Food

UKTV

The Telegraph

and my favourite, The Guardian

Edited February 16, 2014 by liuzhou (log)

[Lisa Shock]

Rose Levy Berenbaum uses weight-based measurement in her 'Bible' books on pastry topics. I don't have her earlier books, so, I cannot comment on them.

[Dave the Cook]

Although it's not specifically about pastry, the King Arthur's Flour Baking Companion uses both weights and volumes.

Most of Jim Peterson's later books (but not Baking) use weights pretty consistently.

[Kent Wang]

On the sites that have both weights and volumes, do you think the recipes are originally developed in weights, or in volumes and then converted?

How accurate are conversions? I can imagine for flour there is a significant amount of variation.

[Lisa Shock]

I think at Cook's Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen/Cook's Country they test by weight then convert.

Yes, flour has a lot of variation. At the beginning of a semester of basic pastry class, on day one, I have every student scoop out a cup of flour, then weigh it. Then, I have them do it again. If they like, I let them go for a third and fourth round. I let them do it however they like. No two people in a class get the same result, and, no one ever gets the same number twice themselves. It's the one part of day one that never changes, no matter who I am teaching.

Sites that give a number of ounces for flour conversion tend to give different numbers from each other, too. King Arthur Flour says 4.25 ounces. Rose Levy Berenbaum and Julia Child say 5 ounces. There are lots of answers all over the web, and, it's no better in metric -I see 110g, 120g, 150g and lots of numbers in between.

[Kent Wang]

I signed up for a Cook's Illustrated trial account but all the recipes are by volume. Is there a way to see the weights? I'm looking at their basic muffin recipe.

[Lisa Shock]

Check the date, that recipe appeared in the January 1997 magazine, before they added weight based measurement. Try a recipe from 2003 or later.

Also, I would like to add that I based my comment above on a memory of discussion of scales and weighing ingredients on the tv show.

[Kent Wang]

Even the newest recipes don't have weights, and I looked at all three of their sites. Good thing it was only a trial subscription.

Looks like I'll be sticking to the UK websites.

[Lisa Shock]

Sorry, I let my membership lapse a couple of years ago, but, thought I seen good formulas there. (I have a weight-based muffin recipe, now I wonder where it came from...) Very sorry to have mislead you.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

I was reading the latest issue of Cook's Illustrated tonight. All ingredients are specified by count or volume. For baking, flour and very few other ingredients are specified (parenthetically) by weight. That's about it.