Measurement error

Everyone knows how important it is to measure your ingredients in baking, right? (Unlike in cooking, where you can just throw things together with nary a measuring cup in sight.) But did you know that measuring by volume is fraught with error? I baked many a bad loaf before I realized the importance of measuring by weight when it comes to baking, particularly with baking breads.

Here's an example. See my very nicely measured cup of flour? It's perfectly level. But look at the scale...

...the bottom left shows that my nicely measured "cup" is actually 5.7 oz. A cup of flour should weigh exactly 5 ounces. Oops. It may not make a huge difference if you're just measuring out a cup, but if you're using a bread recipe that calls for 3, 5, or even more cups of flour, that's going to make a *huge* difference in your flour:water ratio.

So here's what I've started to do instead...

...I just through the flour roughly in a cup, not bothering to make it level or anything, and just grab or add pinches of flour until it measures exactly 5.00 oz.


Oh, and just to make things more complicated, all the recipes at King Arthur Flour assume that 1 cup = 4.25 ounces (unlike every other baking book and flour manufacturer out there). Sigh.