"Chris Moewes" <cmoewes@pobox.com> wrote:
>I really hope this isn't a perennial question but I couldn't find any help
>anywhere else.
>Most of the recipes I run across give ingredients in terms of cups and I
>recently took a baking class where I was told that it is better to measure
>ingredients in pounds (weight vs. volume) especially flour. So my question
>is, how much of a difference does this make, and is there a rule of thumb
>for converting cups of flour to pounds of flour? Is there a golden rule that
>says the perfectly sifted and properly settled cup of flour should equal a
>specific weight.
While weight is a very accurate way to measure dry ingredients, there is
no precise way to convert, since volume is an inherently inaccurate way
to measure dry ingredients. The humidity and compaction levels play havoc
with the resulting volume measurements.
However, if one has reasonably uncompacted flour at average humidty,
one can approximate the conversion as 3 1/2 cups of flour to one pound
of weight (0.45 kg.) The best way to meaure dry volume is to use a
measuring cup that contains one full cup at the rim. Scoop one cup of
flour from a large bin, and then use a flat edge to scrape off the excess
while not shaking or further compacting the flour.
This should give reasonably decent results for the home cook when
making recipes using under 2 or 3 lbs. of flour.