how to use a kitchen scale
It all comes down to taring or zeroing out the existing weight of what you’ve got. Place you empty bowl on your scale and “tare” or “zero out” you weight. (On most digital scales, which I think are the easiest for kitchen use, you simply hit the “On/Clear” button again. On a mechanical scale, you can turn a knob back to the zero mark; on a balance scale, you would set the pointer to the center mark, but somehow I doubt you’re using a balance scale in your kitchen, right?) Add your first ingredient, slowly, until the scale reaches the weight you need. Zero it out again. Add the next ingredient. Zero it out again. If the recipe calls for you to whisk, whip, or blow gentle kisses across the surface of your ingredients, go do that too, but when it calls for the next ingredients, re-zero out the weight of the bowl so that you can continue.
You’ll have this method down in no time. You’ll wonder why you hadn’t tried it sooner. And when the rest of the world (coughUSAcough) gets on this weighed ingredients bandwagon, you’ll wonder what you’ll do with all of the extra drawer space you once devoted to a tangle of dash-pinch-teaspoon-cup measuring implements. I’m voting for stashing chocolate.
I love my kitchen scale. My life has changed for the better since I got one. And I agree, USA get on board!
I always use a kitchen scale. However, when I make recipes I intend to post on the blog, I have to bring out the measuring cups and spoons, so as to give my dear American readers measurements that seem right to them. *sigh*
oh, I have been hoping so hard that your book will be published with recipes with weights! so many great cookbooks coming out of the US at the moment, but it’s so so annoying to be always trying to remember how much a stick and a half of butter weighs. pounds and ounces are a language I can get my head around, but sticks and cups? does my poor little head in
The book will have weights. I literally wrote it into my proposal.
That’s funny… I’m European and find measuring spoons and cups a lot less fussy! I only ever use one measuring cup (it’s a whole cup but 1/2, 1/4 and 1/3 are marked on the inside) and one set of measuring spoons so it doesn’t take much drawer space. However, I should probably add that I’m a very sloppy baker/cook. The dminished accuracy is actually a good thing in my book. Your recipes still taste delicious
I do hate sticks of butter, though. I can never remember how much they weigh.
I’m in the market for a scale – my first. Do you have a favorite?
I got a “My Weigh KD-7000″ for Christmas last year, and I was a bit sceptical about how much use I’d get out of it, but believe me, it’s so much easier weighing out 22 ounces of flour by dumping it in a bowl than scooping and sweeping six individual cups of flour. In other words: I’m pretty lazy for someone who likes making bread and very happy that Deb’s book will have weights!
@brita – I don’t have anything to compare my model to, but I’m quite pleased with it. It conveniently has a number of different forms of measurement that you can switch between–so it doesn’t matter whether the measurements you have are in ounces or grams, since the scale registers those and more.
So what is one to do recipe ingredients aren’t written in weights? Is there an easy way to convert it?
I too am a scale convert. I use it even if the recipe calls for cups. By now I know most of the conversions off the top of my head:
1 cup milk or water = 237g (sorry I’m European, love the metric system. You can divide these amounts by 28 to get ounces)
1 cup butter = 230g
1 cup sugar = 200g
1 cup flour…
Ah, the flour is trickier, since as you mentioned, it depends how the cup is filled. But I hate cups so much that I just go with 1 cup flour = 125g, more or less, and I’ve never had a problem.
When the recipe calls for 1 cup ground almonds, or something I haven’t memorized, then I search online for something like “volume to weight conversion almonds” and usually find a good source for conversions, such as: http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/
I am not coming from a weight-measuring background, in Turkey we used “tea glass”, “coffee cup” and “water glass” for the measurements…and the feel “earlobe consistency” for dough, and “as much as it can handle” for flour addition.
But now that I am trying to re-create my grandma’s recipes and trying to come up with a recipe that I can remember, I invested in a kitchen scale and using a calculator in the kitchen as well, and it has made everything so easy. My years in the lab is paying off now:)
Thanks for these wonderful tips. No need to publish this comment, but I want to let you know that in paragraph 2 you say “Place you empty bowl on your scale.” As wonderful as it is to imagine your words in a crazy accent, I’m pretty sure the “r” was cut out during editing. Just thought you’d want to know. (And I’m honestly impressed by the fact that you manage to publish so much with so few errors).
PS: THANK YOU for using weights in your book! Hopefully you’ll set a new standard for American cooks.
I could not live without my scale. not only has it changed my life in the kitchen, but it does pretty well as a postage scale. And I would rather do anything than go to the post office with twin 3 year old boys (or really at all since they were born)
I weigh, and then hit the USPS website to get the $$ amount and i put that value in stamps on the package. and out the door it goes for my mail-woman.
I’ve got the most brilliant scales- I’m away from them at the moment and can’t for the life of me remember the brand, but I do know its essential characteristics off by heart:
1. It measures very small as well as very heavy things, which makes it just as useful for measuring yeast as measuring potatoes (or very small babies).
2. It is electric. If you want to measure very small increments, even small increments (such as 30g of butter), than mechanical scales don’t work so well.
3. It has a completely flat surface, allowing me to use any bowl I like on top (rather than a custom-fitted one).
4. It has a ‘hold’ button, which will keep the weight just measured in the display long enough for me to take off the extremely large bowl I’ve used and see how much that baby weighs.
Deb,
Great website! Whatever happened to the link you used to have posted on your cooking conversions website that gave various weight equivalents? I used to just link to it from your site every time, but now it’s not there. How am I supposed to know how much a cup of flour weighs in grams now? Thanks for any help!
Hi,
this is great! But, I am a UK reader! Where, for all that is good and holy, can one find a definitive version of what 1 cup of flour weighs in grams? 2/3? It can vary from site to site from 115g to 155g! I’ve had personal failures due to this glitch with the amazing sounding chewy granola bars and chewy oatmeal raisin cookies. This is no fault of the recipe, but I can’t find the accurate ratios. And yes, I have many cups & mugs in my home, but not one that I know equals what Americans know to be one cup! Any one have any help?
Thank you so much for now adding quantities in grams, I am so grateful!
Ann
thank you! i’ve been meaning to make certain recipes forever where you must. have. scale. or you’re just wasting ingredients.
is there any specific trusted brand/model you (or anyone else) could recommend?
I am devoted fan of your blog (it all started with carrot muffins and maple cream cheese…) and I hope you will never switch fully to measuring in weights. Ever since I got my copy of “Joy of Cooking” and started trying American recipes, I loved measuring in cups (which, after all, are strictly defined volume, not like our European “glass”, varying from 200 to 300 ml). And since I have set of measuring cups (instead of single, unmarked cup which is 240 ml and that’s all), I love them even more. Though, it is useful to have alternative measurements in recipes, when sharing my versions of your recipes to Latvian cooking-and-talking-in-forums community (especially with sticks – have several times put twice as many butter in a dough, because our “sticks” come as 200 grams – but it haven’t ruined any of dishes!)
Thank you for this inspiring blog; can’t wait for a SmittenKitchen cookbook!
Any suggestions on a good model/style of scale?
I really like my Salter digital scale, but I know the OXO and this model are also very popular. What matters most, I’d say, is that it’s digital, switches easily between grams and ounces and preferably goes to 10 pounds. My first one, my favorite, went only to 5 pounds (I theorized that I’d rarely be weighing heavier things, which was true, but I do use heavy bowls and want to weep every time I’m adding flour to a bowl and it goes over and zeroes out and I lose my work.)
I also LOVE my kitchen scale! However, I made the mistake last week of measuring out cooking oil with the mL unit, rather than grams, not realizing that mL on the scale is probably calibrated for water, which of course weighs more than oil. So my cake was super oily, it was like someone poured a bottle of oil over a regular cake. Don’t do this.
Hi,
I made a recipe today that called for 1cup of melted butter. I melted 2 sticks of butter on the stove. When it was melted, I poured it into a measuring cup & there was more than 1 cup. I always thought a stick of butter was 1/2 cup.
What gives? I ended up using the measured amount. Did I do the right thing?
Now I’m worried about how much butter to use when recipes call for it. Do I need to measure it? I don’t trust the markings on the butter wrapper now.