Okay, I’m not as calorie conscious as many, but I have been struggling with getting accurate measurements lately. Especially with baking, as I was recently told by a baking pro (who’s also a pal) that using weight measurement with flour (as well as other dry ingredients) is much more accurate than using volume measurements. This makes sense when you think about settling rates and such, but really, I just wanted to upgrade my baking skills, and not think about the science of it all (by the way, if anyone disagrees with this baking premise, I’d be interested to hear about it and why). So, I picked up a digital scale, from Oxo. When making my pick I followed a couple of criteria: first, I wanted it to be easy to store (I have too many kitchen toys and not enough counter space); second, I wanted it to be easy to read; third, I wanted it to be easy to clean. The 5-pound Oxo Good Grips scale I went with hit on all my qualifiers, as it’s not too large and can store vertically and horizontally, is a simple swipe to clean, and is especially easy to read thanks to the super handy pull out display. Now, I find myself liking it enough that maybe I’ll not only use it to bake, but to diet, too (wait, who am I kidding with that. I’ll probably just stick to baking).
--A.J. Rathbun
Tim Daniels on June 25, 2010 at 09:36 AM
I had a 5 lb scale for baking. I got interested in cooking by weight from reading an article http://gizmodo.com/5348968/the-kitchen-scale-unsung-hero-of-great-cooking
I bought the book they were mentioning, and I found it to be great!
http://www.amazon.com/Ratio-Simple-Behind-Everyday-Cooking/dp/1416566112
The NY Times blog had a good article about it too http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/09/weighing-in-the-bakers-dilemma/
The advantage of cooking like this is that you can easily tailor your ingredients to exactly how you want it to come out. It is consistent every time. You can also pick up a cheap set of scoops to keep in your canisters of flour and sugar etc. Since you just scoop out flour and sugar till the weight is right, you just put the scoops back in the canisters, nothing to wash. Also cooking with oil and messy items is great since they don't make a mess all over your measuring utensils. I just pour the 2oz of weight worth of oil right into my mixing bowl for my pizza dough.
The issue we recently ran into though was we tried cooking a larger batch of pizza dough for a party. We were weighing directly in our 6 qt Kitchen Aid mixing bowl and staring it again then adding more ingredients. We quickly overloaded the scale. Because of this I recommend getting at least a 10 lb scale if you cook for more than a few people. (we were cooking for just 5)
So I just purchased a new scale, it should arrive from Amazon today!
http://www.amazon.com/My-Weigh-Digital-Weighing-Scale/dp/B001NE0FU2/
I selected this one because of it's weight capacity of 8kilos 17.6 lbs. And also the ability to cook by baker's percentage. Bakers percentage is the process of cooking based on percentages of one ingredient, usually flour.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baker_percentage
In my last cooking project I made 2 Lasagnas using home made noodles. The recipe for that is 1 part egg to 1.5 part flour. Using a regular scale you'd weigh your eggs (5 in this case) mine came up to 7.75 oz, and put 1.5x that much flour, which is a pain to figure out while you're trying to cook everything. With this KD8000 scale though, you weigh your eggs and hit the % button, it sets the current weight to 100%. You now add 150% flour. No calculating the weights.
I'm sure you'll grow to love cooking this way.
Tim
Josh Reiter on June 25, 2010 at 09:55 AM
I've been using a digi scale for years. It's a lot more common for people in Europe to weigh dry ingredients than to scoop and level. If you see a recipe that actually lists the grams of this and that it probably came from someone overseas. Not only is it more consistent but it is easier. I put my bread machine bucket on the scale and pour in the water; tar it, oil; tar it, salt; tar it, molasses; tar it, whole wheat flour; tar it, gluten; tar it, and finally the yeast. Throw it in the machine and hit start. No, measuring spoons and cups to clean and it comes out tasting the same every single time.
Josh Reiter on June 25, 2010 at 10:06 AM
Oh another thing. It seems that most digital scales operate one of 2 ways. The ones that max out of 5 lbs will generally have a resolution of 1 gram increments. The scales that will go up to 7-10 lbs but have a course resolution of 2-3 gram increments. So, if your going to try and measure things by the teaspoon (5 grams) than you probably want the one with the finer resolution.
Another trick is that if you weigh something that is real light, like salt, you will find that it won't register the weight properly until you have about 2 teaspoons on the scale. So, what do you do if you only want one teaspoon? What you do is put a nickel on the scale first to get it to start registering a value. Then, start pouring your salt on and you will find the accuracy will be much higher. Just subtract 5 grams from the total to account for the weight of the nickel and your there.
Kim at Dogwood Ridge on June 26, 2010 at 06:34 AM
This would be a great scale if it also had a metric conversion- so many recipes I seem to be drawn to are in grams and kilos. Then again, maybe doing the mental math is keeping my brain agile and if I get a scale that does it my brain will fizzle into nothingness. Thanks for the salt weighing tip Josh!
Elizabeth on June 26, 2010 at 09:02 AM
I have used a scale for about 17 years... it is a fabulous way to measure for both cooking and baking. I wish more recipes would include weight measurements! I have a few additional criteria for choosing a scale. See my recent blog entry "The Right Tool" http://foxincrocs.wordpress.com to read about my favorite kitchen gadgets.