The food lab better home cooking through science ( PDFDrive ) 78

conversion for a cup of all-purpose flour), there’d
benoproblematall:eachpersonwouldweighout
exactly the same amount, regardless of how they
handledacupmeasure.
Withitsfluffytextureandeasy-to-aeratenature,
flourisprobablythemostextremeexampleofthis
lackofcorrelationbetweenvolumeandweight,but
itextendstootheringredientsaswell.
•Easycleanup.Thinkofitthisway:tomakeapizza
crustrecipethatcallsforacouplecupsofflour,a
half teaspoon of salt, a tablespoon of olive oil, a
cupofwater,andateaspoonofyeastusingvolume
measures requires you to dirty at the very least a
mixing bowl, a dry cup measure, a liquid cup
measure, a half-teaspoon measure, a tablespoon
measure,andafullteaspoonmeasure.Totalitems
towash:six.Nottoonice.
Here’s how I make my pizza crust: place the
bowl on the scale and weigh the required
ingredients one at a time directly into the bowl.
Totalitemstowash:one.Getit?
• Measuring sticky items is easy. Ever try and
measure out, say, 2 teaspoons of honey? It’s not
easy. Sure, getting the honey into the teaspoon
measureissimpleenough—it’sgettingitoutthat’s
the problem.You end up either getting about half
of it out and eyeballing an extra squirt or so
directlyfromthebottleor,ifyou’reanythinglikeI
usedtobe,youendupwithmostofthehoneystuck
to your finger as you try to scoop it out in

desperation. With a kitchen scale and volume
measurements, fretting about sticky ingredients is
athingofthepast.
Here’s the thing:We all grew up in this country
using volume measurements instead of weight. We
also unfortunately grew up without a firm grasp of
the metric system, a system of measurement vastly
superior to our ridiculous feet, inches, cups, and
gallons. It might be harder to convince people to
switch to metrics, but using weights instead of
volumeshouldbeano-brainerforanyone.Trustme.
Buyyourselfagoodkitchenscale.