Do You Scoop or Spoon Your Flour? A Pastry Chef Weighs In on Learn how to Measure Flour Accurately

Flour is likely one of the most vexing components to measure by quantity. As a result of flour is definitely compacted or aerated relying on the way it’s dealt with, its mass per cup is very variable—one thing that may enormously influence your baking. There are two important approaches to measuring flour by quantity: dipping and spooning.

The Dipping Methodology

The dipping technique (typically referred to as “dip and sweep”) is maybe extra intuitive for residence bakers. It rightly assumes that the typical particular person goes to seize a cup measure, stick it within the bag, and scoop out some flour. Partially, the quantity of drive used to scoop out the flour determines how a lot shall be crammed into the cup, however this will also be influenced by the diploma to which the flour has already compacted. For instance, a brand-new bag of flour could also be extremely compact, however one which’s half full shall be barely aerated from use. Bakers who pour their flour from a bag right into a bin can have well-aerated flour, too. On account of such variables, Kenji has discovered that all-purpose flour can clock in at anyplace from 4 to 6 ounces per cup. In response to that information, Severe Eats has traditionally based mostly recipe conversions from mass to quantity on the typical: a five-ounce cup of all-purpose flour.

The Spooning Methodology

The spooning technique includes spooning flour from the bag right into a measuring cup, which is not as intuitive and it takes a bit extra effort. However it additionally enormously eliminates the dangers of compression, producing a reasonably commonplace four-and-a-half-ounce cup. In culinary college, this technique was taught as essentially the most correct strategy to measure flour by quantity, and it is what you may see in my forthcoming cookbook—along with mass measurements, in fact!

The Greatest Option to Measure Flour

Once I first joined Severe Eats, I went together with the prevailing coverage of changing mass to quantity based mostly on the dipping technique, for a five-ounce cup of all-purpose flour. However, as I’ve grown extra snug in my position because the pastry wizard right here, I’ve felt compelled to fall again on my coaching and swap to the tactic that gives essentially the most constant outcomes for quantity measurements.

My first suggestion for measuring flour will at all times be to make use of a digital kitchen scale. For many who do not personal one, although, my quantity measurements for all-purpose flour shall be based mostly on the spooning technique, with every cup weighing 4 and a half ounces. Simply as brown sugar is usually listed as “1 cup, firmly packed,” the tactic of measuring shall be listed merely alongside the quantity.

March 2017