A guide for how to properly measure all your baking ingredients so you get consistent results every time.
Whether you are a beginner or a seasoned baker, this guide is for you!
Baking is finicky. I love to cook, throwing all the ingredients in there willy-nilly and adjusting as I do. Baking, on the other hand, is science. It requires perfection. It needs you to use the exact ratios of flour, hydration, fat and sugar. It requires you to know that brown sugar should be packed into a measuring cup. It requires you to sift and then gently spoon flour into cups. It requires you to know that liquids should be measured to the bottom of the meniscus in a liquid measuring cup.
I dropped out of baking school. I’ve always struggled with having to follow recipes exactly, to be patient and trust in the process. It did not bring me joy. I rarely baked at home.
And then I bought a café, and had to start baking again. Lord help me.
But ever since I made this one adjustment to how I measure my ingredients, it has become A WHOLE LOT EASIER.
My baking is consistent. It’s simpler to make. It’s less dishes. It’s really easy to scale recipes from 6 scones to 48 scones, and I don’t even have to add fractions.
How NOT to Measure Baking Ingredients
Don’t:
- pack your brown sugar into your measuring cup
- sift your flour or whisk or fluff up your flour bin before scooping it into a measuring cup
- use the water displacement method to measure hard fats like butter
- level your ingredients in the measuring cup with a knife or leveler
- struggle to get honey out of a measuring spoon
How to Properly Measure Your Baking Ingredients
Weigh them.
Hands down, this is my number one tip for baking. Weigh your baking in grams instead of using volumetric measurements like cups.
Get a kitchen scale. It can be a fancy one, like this one I use in my coffee shop, or it can be a $10 one from the grocery store. A kitchen scale will save you time and give you consistent results.
When you weigh ingredients instead of measuring them with spoons and cups, you always get the same amounts.
A volumetric cup of flour could weigh anywhere from 115 grams to 170 grams, depending on if you packed the flour into the cup, did or did not level the cup off flat, sifted the flour before measuring, or spooned the flour gently into the measuring cup.
125 grams of flour is always 125 grams of flour.
Find recipes that use grams instead of cups, or convert recipes as you go. I have a conversion chart that I use for the most common baking ingredients in my kitchen, but a quick Google search will help you in a pinch.
Four Reasons Why You Have to Start Weighing Your Ingredients
- Everyone measures differently. How you pack a cup of brown sugar might be denser than how I pack it. How you scoop flour (spooning it into the cup, leveling it out, or scooping it from the bag while compressing it) can lead to huge discrepancies from what the author of the recipe intended. Did you sift before or after measuring? I’ve found that there can be as much as a 75 gram difference in flour depending on how you measured it. A cup of flour should weigh ~125g grams. These differences add up quickly.
- It’s easier. No more trying to get molasses out of a 1/4 cup measuring cup, or using the water displacement method to measure hard fats (yes, this is how I was taught to measure butter in Grade 8 Foods class). Simply tare your scale back to zero each time, and add away! Less dishes and much faster.
- Math is simpler. Okay. Math is the same, but the process is easier. Tripling a cookie recipe? There’s no need to remember how to multiply fractions ( 1 and 2/3 cup * 3? No thanks. I’d rather do 150 grams * 3) . As well, more complicated recipes tweaks, like calculating the hydration for dough, is done by weight. Math is annoying but it’s easier when there’s no fractions or converting tsps to tbsps to 1/4 cups.
- If you’re selling your baked goods, having all your recipes in weights makes it MUCH easier to cost out. For example, if your bag of flour cost $20 and is 20kg, 100 grams of flour costs 10 cents. You don’t have to know how many cups of flour are in the bag to calculate how much a cup costs.
My Favorite Kitchen Scale
I found my favorite scale when I started making my own soaps at home. It’s the KD-8000 (grab it on Amazon here). I loved it so much that I bought one for my kitchen as well!
It measures down to the gram but also up to 8000 grams, will also do ounces and pounds, and you can disable the auto-off so it will never time out on you.
It’s also made it onto my list of Essential Kitchen Tools for Both Chefs and Home Cooks because of how essential I think a kitchen scale is.
Again, you don’t have to buy the fanciest scale out there. I also have a smaller battery-powered scale that works very well, that I use for weighing my coffee and espresso beans. It weighs up to 5000 grams and is lightweight and easy to store.
How to Convert your Tried-and-True Recipes to Weights
Converting your recipes into grams is quick and easy to do while you are baking.
How to Convert your Recipes from Volumetric Measurements into Metric (Grams)
- Gather all your ingredients and supplies as usual, plus your kitchen scale
Prepare this recipe as usual, with cups and spoons. The only difference – weigh each ingredient first before adding it to your baking.
- Place an empty bowl on your scale, and “tare” down to zero
The container should be big enough to hold the largest ingredient you are working with. If your recipe calls for 6 cups of flour, make sure the bowl can hold that amount. Ensure the scale is reset to zero after every ingredient.
- Measure the ingredients and prepare your recipe as usual
Does your recipe call for 1 cup of butter? Measure the butter as you normally would in cups, and then drop it in your tared bowl to see the weight. Make a note of the weight of the butter on your recipe card. Do this for every ingredient – measure it as you normally would, in cups or tablespoons, and then weigh it in your bowl and make a note on your recipe card, before adding it into your product.
Note: I don’t weigh anything smaller than a tbsp. My scale will do down to the gram, but I’ve found it’s just as accurate to use a tsp. And a scale won’t likely pick up a 1/2 or a 1/4 tsp unless it is very sensitive. - You’re done!
The next time you bake, the metric weights for each ingredient will be on your recipe card. This will make it faster to bake, easier to share your recipes, and simple to increase or decrease your batch size.
How to Convert a New Recipe Into Grams
Converting a new recipe from cups into grams is easy in practice. I use the conversion chart below for common items, and I often google more obscure items.
Save this chart below on Pinterest, or download it as a PDF to print and save on hand
I also use the steps above to weigh the recipe as I build it, and record the weights on the recipe as I go.
Are you convinced?
Maybe you’re already someone who weighs their baking. If so, I hope this guide served to validate your decision. If not, I urge you to dive into the world of working in grams. It’s the easiest and most precise way to measure baking ingredients, hands down.
Let me know if you have any questions, or if you’re convinced to make the switch!
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