Hot answers tagged measurements
20
Is it more accurate? ABSOLUTELY
Does it mean that you can still follow a recipe by weight exactly and expect perfect results everytime? No
You're right in that humidity will vary the weight, but if you're consistently working in the same area with a small change in humidity - its not something to worry about. You'll adjust your recipe once and then ...
13
I've always been taught that baking is a science when it is compared to cooking. Cooking is very much 'to taste' and very individual. There are not as many things that can go wrong with a standard recipe in cooking, and you have a lot more room for creativity. You don't have to look at baking as that precise. However, unlike cooking, where you can add or ...
13
How about Ruhlman's book, Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking?
The entire work is dedicated to breaking cooking down into ratios, and it includes recipes. I hear the bread recipe is particularly good.
12
I suggest to measure by weight as you'll never go wrong.
Otherwise, I use your second method which is to scoop then use a knifed to rid of excess flour.
Flour is so fluffy and needs to be compacted (somewhat) to get a true cup, therefore measuring by weight always guarantees the same amount of flour.
11
I would do it the other way round, I'd fry the sausages first, then add the veg. This has a few benefits as I see it:-
The sausages will brown more evenly, purely aesthetic but some people will think they are not cooked if they are not brown.
You'll get the oil out of the sausages so you'll have a better idea of how much oil to add when you add the veg, ...
11
Maybe!
Flour is unusually variable in how densely it will settle, so this can make a big difference for some recipes. The purpose of sifting is to make the amount of flour in a given volume reliable. (If you are measuring by weight, you don't need to sift.)
By moving around the sifted flour, or pouring it from one container into another, you are changing ...
11
Use something that will help you measure the dough or mix uniformly. Some possible tools to co-opt for this task: Ice cream scoop, melon baller, measuring cups or spoons : all depending on size of course.
You should be able to get to where you can eyeball the size in relation to the tool you are using.
11
Realistically, there's a lot of flexibility in baking, in spite of the cargo cult mantra that you have to follow pastry recipes exactly. There are simple, weight-based ratios that can be used as a foundation for plenty of variation. The "round numbers" are, in fact, approximations, and this is often why you'll see that a typical baked good recipe in a ...
10
The real answer is that it depends on the measurement methodology used by the person who wrote the recipe. I have one book that actually calls for measuring by scooping with the measuring cup and scraping it with the side of the bag, which is how the average person tends to measure flour, and results in about 30% more flour by weight per cup.
King Arthur ...
10
In this Gordon Ramsey scrambled eggs video he uses a "knob" of butter. It appears to be about 2 Tbsp.
I don't think it's intended to be a specific term. You'd never see "knob" used for baking, where exact amounts matter. When cooking, recipes tend to be a general guideline rather than a strict set of instructions.
10
Volume measurements of herbs are hopelessly imprecise to begin with; what you actually measure as 1/4 cup depends entirely on how tightly you pack them, how wet the leaves are, even the size/shape of your measuring cup or spoon. When given a measurement like that, you should always treat it as a rough guideline; don't worry about being exact, it's not ...
10
It's actually understandable why this would be confusing to non-Americans, because the terms "teaspoon" and "tablespoon" actually have two meanings - one in cooking and one in dining.
Historically, teaspoons and tablespoons were simply two types of silverware. Teaspoons were literally for stirring tea or other liquids. Tablespoons were used for serving. ...
10
One tablespoon is three teaspoons, so no, it can't be considered half a tablespoon because it's one-third instead :)
You can use three teaspoons to measure out one tablespoon, but it might be tricky to measure the other way: as Rumstacio said below, the 1/3 is by volume, and it can be difficult to eyeball the volume of a semi-sphere (1.3 the height of the ...
10
This depends on the time you need to bring it to boil (water evaporates long before it starts boiling), the surface area of the water, and your definition of "negligible". Best test it with your own kettle.
My kettle needed 2.5 minutes for boiling it, and lost 11 g out of 560, not quite half an ounce. It will probably lose some more while cooling. If you ...
8
Although I've come to find a lot of uses for my kitchen scale, the ones that immediately pop into mind are:
Exact measurements. When a recipe
calls for a cup of baby spinach, for
example, that's going to be hard to
measure. Not going to be a problem
if you're dealing with weights. This is extremely important with baking, where exact measurements are ...
8
I'm no authority, but I have a hypothesis.
Measuring weight is more complex than measuring volume. Before the invention of the digital scale (recent history), or the spring scale (1770, by a Brit) things were weighed with a balance scale and a set of weights. Materials alone makes this more expensive than a simple cup that would hold a liquid.
Given the ...
8
The Wikipedia answer to this is that Fannie Farmer in her 1896 very popular cookbook decided to use volume measurements for solids instead of weight measurements. In chapter 2 she explains how precise measurements are essential in following recipes and then goes on to explain how to measure flour by volume. No fanfare. My impression is that she was just ...
8
The easiest way to measure a cup of flour is of course to take the measuring cup, plunge it into your bag of flour and just lift up a spoonful. The problem with that is that the plunging and lifting will compress the flour inside the cup and actually get you more flour than you wanted. If you spoon the flour into the measuring cup you minimize the ...
8
From: http://www.ellenskitchen.com/pantry/cansize.html
Can sizes change over time, important if you are adapting an older
recipe. Prior to 1980's), #303 was the popular size for most fruits
and vegetables.;
No. 303 = 16-17 oz.(1 lb.-1 lb.-1 oz.) = 2 cups = 4 servings;
Principal size for fruits and vegetables. Also some meat products,
...
8
It's asking for exactly what it says: 8 cups of broccoli. Measuring by volume is certainly best-defined for liquids, but it works fine for solids too. It works best if you have a large measuring bowl - or just a bowl that you happen to know is around 8 cups (two quarts, about two liters). Or you can just guess by eye, knowing how much volume that is. A ...
7
Assuming you're baking: Sifting does more than just standardize the density of your flour (which it doesn't even do all that well). Most recipes that call for sifted flour do so because it helps aerate the batter, as well as keeping the flour from clumping and forming lumps. It won't incorporate a large volume of air, but it will bring in lots of microscopic ...
7
Here's something useful to know. A good typical salt level for most savory foods is in the neighborhood of 1% by weight. So if you know how much your dish weighs in grams, then add 1% of that in salt and you should be very close to a good result. Adjust down if you are using any ingredients that are already salty, like capers. Adjust up if after the first ...
7
This is something that really puzzled me when I went living in an English-speaking country. Having grown up in Italy, where recipes tell you "Put 120g of this then add 250g of that", I've always used a scale. The first time I saw I recipe with cups and teaspoons I said: yeah, but I've got 10 types of cups in the kitchen... which one should I be using?
Then ...
7
It means to combine the things listed up to and including the cloves, as in "combine ingredients 4 through 11". In that recipe it's just a helpful hint to tell you where the dry ingredients stop.
The recipe is already calling for ground cloves - it mixes them into dry ingredients as-is. When using whole cloves, if you don't immediately just grind them, you ...
7
There is no single ideal. More sugar and butter will mean a more crunchy crumble top (and one that browns or burns more quickly), more flour will make it more sandy - they each have their place. The juicier the fruit, the sandier I like the topping to absorb some of the juice. The longer the fruit needs to cook, the more resilient to cooking the topping ...
6
Baking benefits immensely from a scale. A cup of flour can vary between 4.5 oz. and 6 oz. depending on how it is measured out. That becomes huge when you are working with 4 or so cups. With only three cups of flour you can literally vary in an actual cup amount between people.
Measuring meat is also helped by a scale. Instead of eyeballing one pound of ...
6
There is no official standard. The USDA uses 125g/cup, but labels on packages claim different weights for one cup:
Gold Medal brand: 130g
King Arthur brand: 113g
wolframalpha: 137g
superpacked: 165g
I always convert my recipes to weights using 140g/cup.
6
The normal test for salinity (using a hydrometer, which you're not going to find in a supermarket) won't work, because you have a mixture that's more than just water and salt -- soup will have lots of other things in the water (sugars, gelatin) so you can't take a single measurement and determine salinity from it. You can get one from a pet store -- they're ...
6
Another option is to get one of the plunger type measuring cups. Once you push out the ingredient, you can use a spatula or spoon to scrape the end of the spatula. This works great for honey, molasses, syrup etc.
http://www.thinkgeek.com/homeoffice/kitchen/b78b/?cpg=froogle
6
Well, one obvious answer is to look at the number of portions in the box. (This is found in the nutrition information.) Then divide the amount in the box by the number of portions.
I just pulled down a box of linguine from my shelf. One pound yields eight 2 oz. portions. Which means all you have to do is divide in half three times. It won't be exact, but ...
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