The weights here look quite unusual?

Yes, those seem excessive to me, too! For years I've made a pecan pie recipe for my husband (whose roots run deep in the South) from an old New Orleans cookbook. I find that pie unbearably sweet, though its combined sugar + corn syrup would amount to about 625 g in this recipe.

I've made pecan pie bars before. May I respectfully suggest that not putting sugar in the crust makes the bars even better? That's because the unsweetened crust takes on an almost savory quality against the sweet filling (no matter what quantity of sugar and corn syrup one uses), making the bars altogether a bit more interesting, and delicious. ;o)

Thanks so much! Sounds like this one was developed using measuring cups then? (I have a batch in the oven as we speak!)

Does the test kitchen use mass or volume measures in the first instance? I worry if you are starting with volume and then simply looking at a chart to fill in the mass amounts. That's because there can be huge variations in the actual mass of a given volume of certain ingredients, most notably flour.

A few years ago, I noticed an alarming inconsistency in the alternate gram measures stated for flour in baking recipes featured on Food52. I did a little research, which showed a range from 120 to 146 grams per cup, across 10 recipes published by Food52 editors or staff contributors. Those 26 grams can make such a difference. ;o)

Hi AntoniaJames! It actually differs from recipe developer to recipe developer. Some of us write with weight in mind; others start with volume.

We then aim to provide our test kitchen with both the volumetric and weight measurements to cross-test. (And yes—as of the past year or so, we've been making an effort to standardize to 128 grams/cup of AP flour).