How much does a cup of flour weigh? Seems like a simple question, but it is actually anything but: (Okay,
I made the last one up, but you know what? It might actually make a
difference because the shaking would make the flour settle…in which
case, more would fit in your cup! Determining this, however, would
require a complex equation taking into account your weight, the
structural integrity of your kitchen floor, and how often heavy trucks
drive by and shake the flour before measuring. Too much work.) In
any case, depending on who you ask, and how they measure, a cup of
flour can range from about 3 ounces to about 6! Even the mid-range is 4
1/4 – 5 1/2, which is a huge difference when you are baking. One
article I came across said: "I can make a cup weigh almost anything I
want." Now, isn't that helpful?
I must admit that as I write
this, I am amazed, in a "we can put a man on the moon but we can't…"
sort of way. It's a cup of flour, after all, not rocket surgery! I care about this for two reasons. First,
it really bothers me that people blame themselves when a new recipe
fails. Measuring a cup of flour is dirt simple stuff, yet the experts
can't even agree amongst themselves. This is a rant for another time,
but for now I must say this: If you bake something and it doesn't
come out quite right—heck, even if it is a total failure—don't blame
yourself. All books have typos, the rigor of recipe testing varies from
book to book, environmental factors matter (there are a number of baked
items that you shouldn't bother to make on rainy days), and nobody
knows how much a cup of flour weighs! Second, and more pertinent even if less important, see those cookies at the top of this article? Studded
with chocolate chips and macadamias, laced with coconut, with a
generous helping of oatmeal; the whole blending into a chewy cookie
with a hint of caramel/molasses that uses enough flour to hold
everything together but only just. Those are my signature cookies: bethCookies. They
totally rock. I have been making them for two decades. They are simple
to make, relatively hard to screw up, and I can recite the recipe in my
sleep. And then there are these. Those are what I made when I was
verifying the measurements prior to writing this article. You see, I
always weigh ingredients when I bake. Because, well, even I know how much 7 ounces of flour weighs, even if I don't know how many cups it is.
So
I converted the weight to cups using my standard ratio of 4 1/2 ounces
to 1 cup. Apparently that is just plain wrong. At least when measured
by scooping flour into a black measuring cup in the northern hemisphere
of planet earth on a Tuesday while standing still except for the cat
nudging my ankles. The genuine bethCookies have 7 ounces of
flour. Those others—the imposters—well, they have a smidge over 1 1/2
cups, which could be anywhere between 4 1/2 and 9 ounces. (It was
actually about 8 1/2.) Excuse me while I scream! When I got the scale, I was doing a
lot of bread baking from books by Peter Reinhart, and he uses 4.5
ounces for a cup of flour. Bread recipes, both Reinhart's and others,
worked within reasonable tolerances—and what bread recipe ever used
exactly the specified amount of flour? So, in my kitchen a cup
was 4 1/2 ounces. I labeled all the flour containers so I wouldn't have
to remember. Some cookbooks have both volume and weights, which saved
me the conversion hassle, while others have collected scribbled weights
in their margins as I have used them. Still, a cup of flour has been 4
1/2 ounces, unless otherwise specified. Case closed. …claps hands together to dust flour off of them… Or maybe not. bethCookies makes 4 1/2 dozen butter, 1 cup, (8 oz / 224 gr) Preheat oven to 375°. Have all ingredients at room temperature. Notes I use my 1 1/4 ounce scoop
making equal size cookies fast and easy. The cookies bake at the same
speed and, as an added bonus, you can avoid the trauma of a sibling
getting a larger cookie. If you are
measuring flour by volume, fluff it a little and scoop 1 1/2 cups. If
you aren't totally thrilled with the texture, adjust the next batch by
a tablespoon or two either way. (Unless you live where the flour weighs
3 ounces a cup, in which case all bets are off and I beg you to let me
know how many cups it takes on your planet.) If you want to improve your baking skills, you really should get a digital scale. For about $25us, you can get any of a number of very cool scales. When you get your scale, weigh some flour for yourself and decide what your
cup of flour weighs. Make notes in your cookbooks. The effort you put
into baking will have more reliable results, you will come to enjoy it
more, and probably do it more often. Not so bad for a few dollar
investment.
When writing recipes, however, one must use volume measurements for the American audience, or so says The Recipe Writer's Handbook
Frustrating
though this is, I even know exactly how I got here. When I bought a
kitchen scale a few years ago, it was because weighing 6-7 cups of
flour every time I baked bread was tedious, not to mention of
questionable accuracy. Just how questionable would become apparent
later: last Tuesday to be exact.
sugar, 1/2 cup, (3 1/2 oz / 98 gr)
brown sugar, 1 cup, (7 1/4 oz / 200 gr)
eggs, 2 large
vanilla extract, 1 teaspoon, (5 gr)
all-purpose flour, 1 1/2 cups, (7 ounces / 196 gr) see note
salt, 1/2 teaspoon
baking soda, 1 teaspoon
chocolate chips, 2 cups, (12 oz / 336 gr)
rolled oats, 2 cups, (7 1/4 oz / 203 gr)
coconut flakes, 1 cup, (4 1/4 oz / 119 gr)
macadamia nuts, chopped, 1 cup, (4 1/2 oz / 126 gr)
This recipe appears in my cookbook, Picture Yourself Cooking With Your Kids.
