Using a Kitchen Scale for Baking measurements

[Kit_Kat]

Hello Everyone,

For years I have been interested in using a scale for measurements, but did not have a digital scale. I must have been a good girl this year (or Santa was distracted on my bad days) because I received one!! Now I am not sure where to start. I would love to hear any success stories anyone has about converting to baking with a scale.

Thanks in advance.

Kit_Kat

[Riverside Len]

I'm a big advocate of measuring flour by weight rather than volume because flour is easily compacted, thus making volume measurements inacurate. I also use the scale for other measurements as well, but I think it's more critical for the flour.

Now you have to figure out how much a cup of flour weighs, right? Well, that's not so straightforward as different flours have different weights. According to King Arthur Flour Co., here are what flours weigh:

Unbleached AP 1 cup=4.25 ounces
Bread flour=4.25 ounces
cake flour 1 cup=4 ounces
pastry flour 1 cup=4 ounces
potato flour 1 cup=1.5 ounces
pumpernickle 1 cup=4 ounces
semolina 1 cup=5.75 ounces
whole wheat/graham 1 cup=5 ounces

Of course, you could just look at the flour bag label to get the weight equivelent. And if you use metric measurements you wont have to deal with fractions.

Happy baking!

[duonyte]

I usually just use whatever the measure is in the recipe I'm trying. But if you want to be more systematic, you can measure flour or whatever with cups, then measure it in ounces or grams, and if the recipe turns out just right using that, mark that amount next to the original recipe. The next time you make it, you'll be able to measure out with confidence that the amount will be the right amount.

If the recipe needs adjusting, you can so note and then next time you'll know that, for example 100g of walnuts was not enough, try 125 grams.

[Pa. Hiker]

Having baked bread for years, I find that "measurements" are only a guesstimate. Adding flour to bread is a "feel" as many things can change the amount of flour that goes into the dough, primarily are the age of the flour, how it was kept, and the humidity in the house. I find that summer vs winter can make as much as a cup's difference.

Generally, I will stop measuring flour at 1 cup below what the recipe calls for, then just add enough until it looks and feels right.