Go to the Article: Weight vs Volume—Accuracy
So true and easy to show. Amazing how many people seem rabidly against scales (unless they bake a lot).
eye opener
Compared to the old method by volume, this is genius and the only way to introduce students to the kitchen.
how can i convert recipes with cups and spoon measurements into weights?
Surely recipes using the measurements with cups an spoons will be phased out. Actual weight in grams and ml are far more reliable.
One thing that I have experienced since starting to utilize CS recipes is that when measuring salt, I have found my main scale inaccurate at that level. I don't know what the accuracy of my scale is, but once you shift from measuring 100 grams to measuring 4 grams, it is time to move to the more accurate scale.
The downside I've found is that there are hundreds of resources indicating how to make high-altitude adjustments for a recipe measured by volume, but I have not yet found any on how to adjust recipes by weight.
Eggs are another example. Though I noticed they don't always include eggs by weight in recipes. Is this something they've only recently changed to specifying? Or am I missing some obvious work around?
It's really interesting to think in detail about a skill we probably take for granted. It has made me question some of the recipes I have taken from books or online, are these really the quantities needed to reproduce the results they are explaining? It has emphasised that h however experienced or sophisticated your skills are, going back to basics sometimes is invaluable.
The change in volume is related to a change in density of your ingredients, the mass in this equation would remain the same no matter the ambient pressure of your environment. This is another example of why specifying ingredients by mass is superior to volume because 10 grams of egg yields the same number of atoms at 0 m as at 10,000 elevation. In order to combat the effects of pressure changing on baking time, rising characteristics etc - simply use the relative percentage change in ingredient quantity as recommended by volume centric tables, your results will be the same. Perhaps Chef Steps could curate a table with these adjustments based on altitude for mass measurement units instead of by volume units.
Thank you for quantifying this!
If measuring say 4 grams of salt (or anything else for that matter) on scales that only indicate by 1 gram units you could get anything from approx. 4.6 to 5.5 grams representing a -10% to +10% error. If you scaled this up you wouldn't except 460 to 550 grams if you wanted 500 grams! So to measure small quantities accurately you need to have scales that measure in .1 gram units. This of course applies to ounces as well.
You need a second scale that measures to 0.1 or 0.01g (I'd recommend the latter if you follow a lot of ChefStep recipes, since some of the modernist ingredients require that level of accuracy).
https://www.modernistpantry.com/digital-ingredient-scale-1036.html
https://www.modernistpantry.com/digital-ingredient-scale-100g.html
first off, they teach you to Never scoop flour into a cup but to mix it up first and then spoon it into a cup.
