Barb wrote
> Just one problem: most
> recipes come in cups, not ounces or grams, so how do we
> weigh when the recipe says to measure???
>
"Most recipes" in the US maybe but the doomed attempt to measure accurately
ingredients other than liquids by volume is something the US has developed
all by itself. Unless they're converting for the benefit of an American
audience, cooks in the rest of the western world use weights for
non-liquids. Volume for liquids makes a little more sense but the actual
amount (mass) of, say, olive oil or water in a given volume depends on
temperature. A litre of oil at 30 C contains less oil that a litre at 15 C.
As for conversion from cups to weights the best thing to do is take what is
pretty standard conversion factor of 140 grams to the cup of flour as a
start, flour being the base of any bread, then, each time you use a new
ingredient, look up conversion factors on the net, ask the list or,
probably the easiest, measure in your usual way but weigh each cupful and
note the factor for later use. Metric is not only easier to use,
particularly with baker's percetages, but has the advantage of being
universal, except for the US. A kilo is a kilo wherever you are - pounds,
pints , bushels, pecks, teaspoons and so on all vary with country.
The debate about measuring methods is complex, often heated and prone to
hijacking by metric/volume/imperial adherents who think that any measuring
system other than the one they use is a communist/atheist/American
Imperialist/unpatriotic (insert your bogeyman here) plot to undermine the
fabric of society.
It's just not that difficult to work in any measurement system and the
calculations involved needed half a brain before calculators and
spreadsheets and now about a tenth of a brain.
And I'm not being dismissive or impatient - it's just that, when you bake
seriously you soon realise that technique is the key to success and that
measurement is a lesser source of failure. I baked bread recently in a
kitchen who's sole measuring capability was a thick walled Pyrex jug. All I
did was measure the liquids roughly, to give some control over final dough
weight, then add flour until the dough was the consistency I wanted. The
bread was excellent.