Lots of background I've just become part of a group that will bake bread for communion at the church I'm attending.
Last night we had an information and instruction session. We were in two groups (two people each group, basically). The woman I was paired with scooped the measure of ww flour from and inside the bag and leveled it by pressing it against the inside of the bag. Quel horror. Because I'm an outsider in the group, I managed to keep my mouth shut about the fact that she was packing it in. I scooped the white flour in a similar fashion but leveled it with a straightedge. In the final prep, our dough was drier than the batch assembled by the other pair.
The outcome: The other pair's dough was moist and smooth; ours seemed dry but we didn't add any more liquid anything to compensate or make ours look more like theirs. Like I said, I kept my mouth shut.
As we tested the finished product and evaluated the whole thing as a group exercise, I suggested that measuring by weight would be more accurate and should produce a more consistent product and I volunteered to pre-measure the dry ingredients and make packages for an individual's use; the liquids would need to be measured and added by each baker.
In order to determine the weight of the flour, it seems to me like I need to first establish a volume measure and weigh it.
My question: What is a good way or the best way to measure the flour for volume to then determine its weight? Stir it before measuring? Scoop and level? Spoon and level?
Here's a link to the recipe.
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FWIW, I've got a call in to the sem's dining services honcho to ask a couple other questions about the recipe's prep, too. Thanks.
IICC, with ww flour you stir it first, then lightly sppon it and level it with a knife. (I had to laugh at your horror in someome scooping it directly from the bag - I would have felt the same way).
But if you have a scale, the weight would be measured however you do it.
And I have to say you are very diplomatic to do this - good problem-solving!
Kris
P.S. - I notice this is an ELCA-related site - is that your denomination? It's mine, and I might have even had a similar bread at communion before - very delicious.
I just read the bag to determine weight per volume. Every bag of flour I have checked, whether semolina, whole wheat, white or gluten flour, all indicate the same thing; 1/4 cup of flour weighs 30 grams. From there, it's just math to determine the weight for any given quantity of flour needed.
Humidity or a different grind can affect measuring- have you actually tested this theory? I would think a quarter cup of semolina would be heavier than the same of white.
Test it how; pour 30 grams of flour in a measuring cup?
Facts of which I am certain:
- measuring by measuring cup results in great variability, for many reasons
- every bag of flour I have looked at, regardless whether semolina, whole wheat, white or gluten flour, all indicate the same thing; 1/4 cup of flour weighs 30 grams
- I get consistent results using flour of all variety utilizing 30 grams for every 1/4 cup a recipe calls for.
- I do not have a lab environment, humidity is somewhat variable; however, all my flour, regardless of type, is stored in the freezer until needed; weighed cold from the freezer then brought to room temperature. The method I use to store and weigh reduces much of the variability due to humidity.
- vendors claim and my results confirm to my satisfaction, 1/4 cup of flour should weigh 30 grams
. I overlooked the obvious. Except it wasn't quite *so* obvious inasmuch as I transfer my flour from paper bag container to Tupperware and have no label. Thank you for the reminder and for the information.
If there is an industry standard for the weight of flour, then I think you should believe the weight, not the physical amount. Whether or not it fills a cup shows you that the weight is one thing, and the physical measurement is another.
Hence the standard for weight, which is, apparently, more consistent than using cups, etc.
However, it is important that you're using a proved recipe that uses weight as the measuring standard. If you're not, then weight could be a problem. . . .
I, too, have heard that professional bakers use weight. But, their recipes are based on weight, and work with that system. . . .
Alan
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It's not that I think stupidity should be punishable by death. I just think we should take the warning labels off of everything and let the problem take care of itself.
In the end, the feel of the dough is what is important, and that the feel be correct for that bread.
Professional bakers weigh carefully, and then they feel the dough to make sure it feels right. And then they taste it to make sure, really sure, that they put the salt in.
I used to be a weight skeptic. I'm not sure if it was here or in alt.bread.recipes a number of people weighed their cups of flour. The range was from slighlty under 100 to over 200 grams per cup, depending on how they filled the cup. All of these were with all-purpose flour.
Worse, there were people who had as much as a 25% cup to cup variation.
Actually, if you leave the United States, you'll probably find most homes have set of kitchen scales, or two. And given the very reasonable price of a decent set of My Weigh scales on eBay, I think that they are a good investment for bakers in the USA also. (I've had excellent luck with My Weigh. Bad luck with Digi Weigh.)
If you know what you are doing, you can use cups successfully. If you don't know what you're doing, scales might not save you.
When I started baking professionally, I discarded all but one set of cups and tablespoons - I still need to convert recipes from time to time. Though I no longer bake professionally (though I hope to start again soon), I still weigh everything. It's easier. It's faster. And it's more consistent.
How do I convert from cups to weight? I put a bowl on a scale, turn it on, zero it, and then measure out the liquid ingredients, noting the weights, and zeroing after each addition. Then I add salt, sugar and other small powdered ingredients, weighing and zeroing as I go.
If the recipe is a multi-flour recipe, I add the smaller amounts of flour to the bowl, weighing and zeroing as I go. So, if it calls for
2 cups of rye, 2 cups of whole wheat and 4 cups of white flour, I add the 2 cups of rye, check the weight, add the 2 cups of whole wheat and again check the weight. Then I finish up with the last flour as described in the next paragraph.
If the recipe is for just one kind of flour, or if I am finishing up a multi-flour recipe, I turn on the scales and put a fresh bowl (clean and dry) on the scales. I don't zero the scales, but I do add twice the flour the recipe calls for, check the weight and write it down. I don't zero the scales because most electonic scales shut themselves off after a while, and then they forget what was on them. Since the next step will take a while, a pencil and paper and a good reference point work really well here.
At this point, I stir the stuff in the first bowl and start adding the flour from the second bowl. I usually start by adding about 1/2 the flour called for. Once the dough is too hard to stir, I turn it out into a floured board and start kneading. Of course the flour on the board came from the second bowl. Any flour I knead in also comes from the second bowl. Once the dough feels right, I cover it and let it start rising.
And then I check the weight of the second bowl. I subtract that weight from the starting weight, and I know how much flour I added to the dough.
At this point, I clean and put the cups away. If I need to adjust the recipe, I adjust the weights. I usually put the recipe into a spreadsheet so I can more easily scale it up and down.
I find that I can, at this point, skip the whole "add a little flour at a time" game and just weigh and mix, which is a great time savings all by itself.
Melba, consider this: to work with weight when making bread, start with whatever amount of flour, weigh it and assign it the percent value of 100%. In this sysem all the other ingredients are a percentage of the flour's weight. This may be in ounces or grams. I work in grams and use a pocket calculator to get the amount, in grams, of water, yeast, salt, etc. If you do not have receipes which are measured in weight and want to translate from volume to weight you will have an additional bit of work. But once that is done for a given receipe you should experience more consistant results with weight based baking. There are weight based cookbooks available. Doug
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