how many grams in cup of flour
I know, this seems like an easily google-able thing, but you would be surprised at what a range of answers come up - anything from 120 (King Arthur) to 150 (Nigella). I'm asking because I recently started to use a scale for baking, but I find that my dough is generally a bit wetter than I would expect. So far the recipes have had both cups and grams listed, and the amount of flour I end up using is closer to the cup measure in the end. I can only assume that the recipes were developed for cups and converted by the authors. I know that there is a lot of variation depending how how you put the flour into the cup, but is there a generally accepted standard?
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11 Comments
I know people say 'weigh your flour'...but when they say that in a recipe, they should explicate state what flour they're using to test the recipe. I tend to use cups, with a 'swoop' method in the bag.
I always find it funny when people expound on the virtues of scales by using consistency as an argument in favour of scales. When you consider factors ranging from where and how the flour was milled, to the humidity, to the age of your ingredients and then add in how fallible our memories are with respect to anything, let alone taste, I find it to be a pretty weak argument in favour of scales.
I think from now on, should it be readily apparent when I read the recipe, I will stick to cups when the recipe has been developed for cups and metric when it has been developed using weighted measures.
The only reason I bought the scale was to try a bread recipe from this website that I have not even tried yet. Personally, I find the scale great for weighing chocolate and other things with less variation than flour.
Fortunately most breads are fairly forgiving. Good luck and have fun working with breads.
Thanks for your reply!
If a dish calls for milk or cream, it may vary over the seasons as cows switch from grass to hay thus changing the quality and properties of their milk.
In a slightly more obvious way, it's like trying to make strawberry shortcake in the dead of winter. Sure, it can be done, but the results won't be the same as fresh strawberries at the peak of their season.
Over time, recipes from old cookbooks may not work with modern, commercially available ingredients.
Example: eggs today are produced from laying hens who are vastly different than their ancestors 40 years ago. Even if you buy the same size/grade (like large), the egg white-yolk ratio is different these days. If I recall correctly, more white in contemporary eggs as the laying hens are much younger, which may call for an extra egg (more yolk) to compensate for the missing protein/fat and to reduce the liquid elsewhere in the recipe.
For sure, it is nearly impossible to buy a chicken in America called for in a sixty-year-old recipe with a modern chicken. Today's American chickens are bred so huge that the breasts of a contemporary chicken weigh the same as an entire chicken from 30-40 years ago.
But ultimately, I agree with Smaug. There is a higher chance of success by starting with time-tested recipes from reliable sources. Cookbooks in libraries are a better source of recipes than the Internet as a whole.