Measuring By Weight In Baking

It’s common practice in the United States to bake using recipes that call for ingredients measured in cups and tablespoons. But these measures, while just fine for cooking most recipes, are too imprecise for baking. Baking is a science, and unless you use very exact measures, the recipe can come out differently every time you make it. Little changes can make a big difference in many recipes. A cup of flour that isn’t leveled quite right might actually be too much. A cup of brown sugar may not be packed quite enough, and it may end up being less than the recipe calls for. Weather, humidity, and environmental conditions can all have an effect on the measurements and the final product. Maybe this unpredictability and variability of using volume measurements is the reason so many people feel intimidated by baking and disappointed by recipe failures. 

In order to ensure a consistent and successful outcome when baking, professional bakers weigh their ingredients. Measuring ingredients by weights makes it easy to make sure that they have exactly the amount they need each and every time. It also makes the sometimes complicated job of adjusting the recipe for size a question of simple math.

I want you to get the best results when trying my recipes, so all of the recipes I demonstrate and provide are written using weight rather than volume measurements. Don’t let this intimidate you. All you need is a small, simple, digital kitchen scale that you can buy at any cooking store or online.  It may take some getting used to, but weighing your ingredients is just as easy as measuring them out by volume(if not easier), and it’s well worth it.