Weighing without a scale is not as difficult as it seems! What utensils are included in cooking?
Five grams, more or less, is important to give a dish or a cake the flavor you want. Personally, I am not very precise in terms of proportions. Besides, I manage better than all the nonsense of Anglo-Saxon measures when I start a recipe glued to the nets. I can confirm that the taste is good and I don’t know if it would be better with exact dosages. That’s why I tried to figure out how to draw without scales. All the sites, pages and blogs I consulted said that it is important to measure the ingredients correctly. Especially in baking! Let’s lift the curtain on the advice of great chefs!
I am not cordon bleu, but I manage my food and cakes, they are edible and delicious. I’m not interested in making shows because I find them pretentious and snobbish. It doesn’t stop me from pinning the recipes on facebook and saving them in a folder on my desktop. I like to experiment with easy, quick and low-budget versions. If they are affordable and do not take a lot of time, so much the better. Maybe it’s wrong, but when I read 125 g, I simplify to 130 or better, 150 g. It is said that the most important step in any recipe is measuring the ingredients correctly, and the bakery is very unforgiving in this regard. This is a whole science and not respecting the measures can be a disaster. On the other hand, weighing without a scale is definitely child’s play for experienced chefs. While you can easily get away with a handful of one or the other when making dinner, even the smallest baking mistake can turn your traditional Christmas cookies into, say, “pebbles.” Understanding the proper measuring technique for a particular ingredient will ensure better cooking results. Because the difference between recipe success and failure can be a poorly measured ingredient.
How to weigh food without a scale?
Some kitchen utensils are our allies for weighing without scales. Spoons, cups and glasses are used to calculate the weight of the main ingredients.
It should be noted that although the object of measurement is the same, the quantities are different because they depend on the texture and consistency of each ingredient.
You can also calculate the weight of powdered foods such as flour, sugar powder, baking powder, cocoa powder. In this case, one dessert scoop equals 3 grams of powder ingredient.
If you need to calculate the amount of products such as sugar, salt, jam or oil without a scale, you should consider that a dessert spoon of these ingredients weighs about 5 grams.
One tablespoon is equal to three teaspoons. Therefore, it is easier to calculate 100 grams of rice or 100 grams of sugar with one spoon.
In the case of liquid ingredients, one tablespoon equals between 10 and 12 milliliters, depending on the density.
In contrast, the grams of powdered foods vary. A tablespoon of flour contains 12 g, a spoonful of powdered sugar 5 g, a spoonful of cocoa powder 8 g and starch 8 g.
A tablespoon of butter is 15 grams, and a tablespoon of honey or jam is 20 grams.
One option, faced with the need to calculate the weight of liquids without a scale, is to use a dessert spoon, which is equal to 5 milliliters, as we all have at home. In the case of less dense liquids, for example, olive oil, a spoonful of the same size is equal to 4 milliliters.
For serving water, the capacities of medium-sized glasses are marked on the bottom of the glass. However, most models have a capacity of 180 milliliters. Thus, it is very simple to measure grams without a scale of liquid substances. The capacity of the bottle will be your guide.
When you want to know the weight of rice or sugar without a scale, calculate that each glass of water weighs 180 grams of these ingredients.
Coffee cup and tall glass for orientation
Coffee cups are a good choice for measuring quantities without a scale. There is always a difference when smoking a liquid or solid ingredient like sugar.
One cup of coffee is equal to 60 ml of liquid and 50 ml of fat. Density is what matters.
If sugar, salt and rice are equal to 60 grams in a cup of coffee, then flour in the same cup is equal to 35 grams.
As for a tall glass, it contains 250 ml of any liquid ingredient, and full of flour is calculated as 140 g.
When measuring grains, it should be noted that one cup is 220 grams, and 200 grams with sugar.
Flour is the most commonly mismeasured ingredient. If you are using bread flour, cake flour, all-purpose flour, or any other flour on the market, use the “spoon and level” method. Do not scoop the flour out of the bowl/bag with your measuring cup as you may end up with 50% more than you need. Instead, scoop the flour into the measuring cup using a spoon. Do not squeeze it, because it settles on the walls of the cup and a few grams stick to it. After pouring the flour into the measuring cup, level the top using the back of a knife.
If a recipe calls for “1 cup flour, sifted,” measure and then sift. If the recipe calls for “1 cup sifted flour” – sift the flour, then measure. It all depends on the comma. This detail really impressed me because I sift the flour before using it and store it in a container. It turns out that there is an important difference between screened and unscreened. An interesting experiment is to put different types of flour (all-purpose, cake, bread) in labeled jars.
- 3 g: one teaspoon
- 12 g: one tablespoon
- 25 g: a large spoon
- 30 g: a handful
- 35 g: one cup of coffee
- 130 g: one glass of water
- 140 g: one glass
Is palmistry a reliable method?
The old method used by our grandmothers is quite reliable. It is a good tool for calculating the weight of substances without a hand scale.
Well, a handful of short pasta is 40g and a handful of spaghetti is 80g. For rice and other cereals, 45 grams is calculated, and a handful of any type of flour weighs 30 grams.
After reading and writing this post, I am much more accurate in measuring ingredients. And you?
