Weights, Volumes, and Balanced Scales

 

Recipes come in all sorts of forms and flavors. Some start with longform anecdotes you don't want to read, some have history lessons or ingredient sourcing instructions, and a lot of them just suck.

That suck can be for a variety of reasons, but the most common is the measurements. Cups, spoons, sifting, leveling, liquid, powder, solid, crumble... it doesn't matter what it is, it's not going to be consistent unless you're weighing it, and I absolutely hate that, which is why I almost always prefer using weighted measurements and scales. 

But what do you do if the recipe doesn't have them? What if it never did? A whole lot of recipes tend to lean vague- sometimes by accident, other times by design. 

An old cookbook from medieval France might have 'Two pounds flour' in a bread roll formula. Easy enough, right? Until you realize that at the time, a French pound was twelve ounces rather than sixteen. Oops!

So here- some quick volume to weight conversions that won't screw up home kitchen recipes.

    1 cup All-purpose Flour should be 140g, and Whole Wheat Flour nearer 150g
    1 cup of Self-Rising Flour will be a hint less than 140g, and Bread Flour 145g
    1 cup Granulated Sugar is a flat 200g, and most non-clumped Brown Sugar is more like 190g
    1 cup of Tapioca Starch? 135g (my developed recipe for Pão de Queijo uses 200g, or ~1.5 cups)

Many historical cookbooks take for granted the common culinary lexicon of the period in which they were published due to space and expense concerns, as well. 

I recall a recipe in the Fannie Farmer Cookbook for risolles, which are essentially samosa or ravioli, made with puff pastry in lieu of standard dough, then deep-fried.

The first step in the recipe? "Make Puff Paste". Because, of course, everyone reading the recipe already knows what it is and how to make it...

These are the struggles of the recipe writer. To take the temporary and turn it into a timeless treasure through the written word. Don't be afraid to look at a recipe and wonder if something's not right, and don't be shy about taking notes and making edits for the next time around. Every time you fix something, the next person to use it will be grateful, whether you're around to hear it or not.