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How to Measure Flour? — 12 Comments

  1. 4 stars
    Do you have a chart to reference the weights of the various flours and other ingredients used in your recipes? Like Gary and
    Rick’s comments above, I started weighing everything, even the liquids in my recipes. All my recipes, not just bread! I’ve found that recipes I’ve had problems with previously are working out much better using weights.
    I’m using a couple different charts, but they can get a bit cumbersome, totaling 16 pages for baking ingredients! Very thorough though, breaking it down by different flour, grains, etc.
    Thank you for this post!

  2. So here is my concern with using your recipes. I have a Zo also… If your recipes were created using the Scoop and Sweep method but I weigh the ingredients instead won’t the flour be off? Do I also need to use the scoop and sweep if I am using one of your recipes? I’m just trying to be the most accurate for the recipe I am using…Thanks for the help!

    • This is a great question. My impression is that most folks that weigh their flour are able to use the recipes as is. However, I’d advise that you try making one of the recipes and weighing the ingredients just like you always do. Be sure to look at the dough after 5 or 10 minutes to see how it’s doing. Then you’ll know if it’s okay to follow the directions as is.

  3. Hi Marsha
    I posted this comment earlier, not sure where but this is where I intended it to be.

    After not being completely successful after the first two loaves I started researching dry measuring cups. One site showed a cup with
    “1 cup/240ml , my cup has 250ml. After measuring 4 cups of flour that would be quite a difference.

    What does your cup equal?

    Thanks for all the help,really enjoy the site.

  4. As Someone who gets consistently inconsistent results using measuring cups and spoons I committed to weighing and am waiting on my scale to show up. The Ozari Pronto scale can be had for under ten dollars, tests as very accurate and is rated a Best Buy at America’s Test Kitchen. For less than ten bucks I can’t see any reason to not try weighing.

    The problem with scooping flour and eyeballing liquids is it can take so very little in either direction to screw up a bread. All it takes is a couple tablespoons too much water to end up with a loaf with a blown out and pancaked top. Personally I’m at the point in my bread making career that I’m more than willing to take a couple extra minutes (if that) to weigh ingredients in order to get consistent results. Rather than having to hover over the machine poking and prodding the dough ball throughout the knead cycles to check and adjust if it’s too wet or too dry.

    We’ll see…

    • Follow up:

      Having turned out a half dozen loaves now by weighing ingredients – I’m a believer.

      1, 1.5, 2 pound loaves, white, wheat, cheese even – all good. I’m getting consistent results with no problem loaves. The dough balls are more elastic, the loaves have a nice domed top, the texture and crumb have improved. No collapsed tops. I haven’t had to tweak any of the dough balls by adding extra water or flour during the knead cycles. Not once.

      What was the problem?

      Just like Gary I found that scooping – no matter if I fluffed the flour and was carefully placing it into a measure with a spoon – was putting extra flour in the mix. When I tested them on the newly acquired scale my Kitchen Aid measures using the scooping method were adding an extra 17 grams of flour per cup – or 14% too much. That may not matter for other cooking but bread is a fickle mistress and 14% too much flour or water is never a good thing.

      Do you need to weigh everything? No – the big culprits seem to be the flour and the water. And other substantial ingredients like a cup of shredded cheese etc. when used. The KAF website has a huge listing of almost any bread ingredient you could think of that converts cups to ounces to grams – huge help.

      I firmly believe now if bread machine manufacturers pushed weighing ingredients that over 90% of the complaints and problems reported about Bread Behaving Badly would be vanquished. Heck, they should include a scale with every machine sold.

      That 10 buck electronic scale was the best thing I have bought for my kitchen in a long time. I still do a ‘lil happy dance every time I break it out.

  5. I did a weight comparison, so I could adjust the recipes.

    The scoop and level method (as I did it) came out at about 140 grams per cup of bread flour, vs. the 120 grams per cup as printed on the bag. This is about 17% more than the weight method.

    I expected the difference because the scoop and level compresses the flour as it is scooped, so it should be heavier. I just did not know how much heavier it would be.

  6. I use the weight method, as for me that is easier.

    I understand that one is supposed to “fluff” the flour, before measuring. I did not want the hassle and mess of using a sifter to fluff the flour. I remember how messy it was when my mother sifted flour when she baked. So taking the seemingly easy way out, I put a bowl on a digital scale, zero the scale, then start scooping until I get to the weight I want.

    The only wrinkle is that not all flour weighs the same. Bread and all-purpose is different than wheat, which is different than corn meal. So I have to keep track of the flour that is called for in the recipe. But once I write the weight into my recipe, it is done.

    BTW, I also now weigh my water. I have 4 different measuring cups, and 1 cup of water in any one cup does not measure 1 cup in the other 3 cups. argh No wonder I could not get my bread to be consistent.

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