> I know, I’m using cups and teaspoons and not something more universal like grams. If my little model becomes a smash hit, I will try to add metric system support.
It's not that cups/teaspoons aren't universal that makes them noteworthy, it's that they're volumetric. You should be measuring your dry ingredients by weight. The unit isn't that important, we can convert once you start measuring properly.
It's not about linearity, it's that a "cup" of flour can be two completely different amounts of flour depending on how densely it's packed. Going by weight prevents this sort of measurement error.
Well, it CAN vary quite a lot theoretically, but that’s why there are guidelines on how to measure a cup of flour.
https://www.mashed.com/182198/youve-been-measuring-flour-wro...
Yet, to your point: when I bake (at least when I bake sourdough, which is virtually all I make), I always measure using a scale, and I measure in grams. No reason to go for imprecision when you don’t have to.
But these guidelines for how to measure flour by volume are also important simply for historical reasons: lots of the most respected cookbooks measure by volume, not by weight.
For years, chefs, professional bakers, and cookbook authors alike have urged home cooks to become comfortable with a scale, but habits are hard to change. Your mother and grandmother probably didn’t use scales, and you may even have their measuring cups in your kitchen drawer. But using a scale will change the way you cook and bake for the better in many ways.
And the merits of weighing are not only about accuracy: weighing is also more convenient. Weighing is a much easier and cleaner way to measure peanut butter, molasses, or corn syrup, for example—you simply set the mixing bowl on the scale, tare the scale (set it to zero), and measure the ingredient into the bowl, rather than having to scrape it into and out of a measuring cup. And, of course, there is the additional bonus that more than one ingredient can be measured into that same bowl.
Precision matters more in baking than in savory cooking, which is why Sebastien and Matthew provided exact weights, for optimum results. You’ll see that most of these recipes have what may seem crazily specific weights: 519 grams of flour, for instance, or 234 grams of sugar. This is because we converted these recipes from the larger-scale recipes used by the bakery. (This is another benefit of using weights—all recipes can easily be halved, doubled, or tripled, and so on, and they will work.) Do not be intimidated by these specific amounts—when you use a scale, it’s easy to measure 234 grams. However, when converting those weights to volume, we often had to round them off (despite Sebastien and Matthew’s preference that we not). In a short time it should become readily clear why weighing is the preferable route.
We strongly recommend using digital scales, either a bigger one that weighs to the tenth of a gram, or a basic kitchen scale for larger quantities and a palm scale that weighs smaller quantities.
The same cookbook recommends weighing eggs as well; recipes specify egg whites/yolks/whole by weight (all ingredients are specified by both weight and volume, though weight is recommended).
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Likewise, eggs vary slightly in weight from one to another; measuring eggs by weight ensures great accuracy. “Large” eggs are 56 grams/2 ounces by definition, but they vary in weight by 10 or more grams, so calling for eggs by weight, as we do in these recipes, guarantees more consistent results. And weighing allows you to use any size egg you have access to, which is especially helpful if you use farm-raised eggs, which are often not graded by size.
You could either just use the egg as it's likely close or adjust the rest of your ingredients from the weight of the egg. I made a calculator for some of my recipes that lets you put in how much of a specific ingredient you've got and tells you the adjusted amounts for the rest. With that it'd be fairly easy
>Well, it CAN vary quite a lot theoretically, but that’s why there are guidelines on how to measure a cup of flour. So says my baker mom, and so says the internet.
Where baking is done can override volumetric measuring, even with sound, consistent technique. I'm a professional bread baker working at altitude in a low humidity environment. One cup of flour for me will weigh less than a cup for someone in a high humidity area. Parents and grandparents passing down volumetric recipes in the past were unlikely to experience inconsistent baking/cooking outcomes because back in the day succeeding generations were apt to remain in the same geographic area.
Well, you’ve got all kinds of problems baking at altitude. You may need to make all kinds of adjustments to your recipes. So it feels to me like this is just one of a dozen issues you’ll have.
But yes, I did not mean to endorse measuring by volume—only that you can avoid much of the problem if you follow proper measuring technique. As I noted in my post, I personally use weights when baking.
As for the historical justification for using volumetric recipes: you’re probably overthinking it if you’re connecting it to geography, and especially if you’re connecting it to altitude. More likely the reason would just be that volumetric measuring was easier and cheaper to reproduce until quite recently. Scales can be expensive, can break, etc. Cups are cheap and durable.
Certainly, the historic justification for volumetric measuring is likely what you say, that scales were not a thing for most anyone to have until recently. My point was just that recipes used across generations in a family weren't back then (compared to nowadays) likely subject to geographic changes because people were much less likely to move far. I've got nuclear family members on both US coasts and I'm in a landlocked state. That kind of intra-family dispersal is much more common today.
It's not that cups/teaspoons aren't universal that makes them noteworthy, it's that they're volumetric. You should be measuring your dry ingredients by weight. The unit isn't that important, we can convert once you start measuring properly.