I hate baking with weight measurements

@NJChicaa (124473)
United States
August 1, 2025 11:03am CST
Yes I know I know that is the "big girl" way to do it but I find it annoying as hell. I bought a kitchen scale a couple of years ago but I didn't start using it until I started on this sourdough journey. One of the new bread books I have is "The Perfect Loaf" and most of the measurements are exclusively in weights. I understand that the weight of a cup of one type of flour can differ from another one but water? Seriously? Can't you just tell me how much 115 grams of water is? Luckily the author takes a bit of pity on readers and at least deigns to just say "2 eggs" or "1 teaspoon of vanilla". I appreciate that most baking books will give both--cups and weights--though Thomas Keller's stuff makes my head explode with measurements like "2 and 3/4 teaspoons of egg". What the heck am I supposed to do with that? Well I guess now I can just use the scale.
5 people like this
4 responses
@DaddyEvil (158351)
• United States
1 Aug
I used to have a few cookbooks with weights listed for ingredients... I wrote in the margins how much that means in "real" measurements. I wrote the recipes I really liked in a notebook and gave all the recipe books away. (I tried to donate them to the local library but they don't accept donations anymore.)
2 people like this
@NJChicaa (124473)
• United States
1 Aug
I have a stupid number of cookbooks.
2 people like this
@DaddyEvil (158351)
• United States
1 Aug
@NJChicaa When I took over as cook when I was 13, some of our family thought it was funny to keep buying me cookbooks... When I got full custody of Pretty when she was 5, I started writing our favorite recipes into the notebook and still have that on a shelf in the kitchen. Pretty prints out recipes from online sites and hangs them on the fridge until we test them and see if we like them and then, if we do, tucks those into the notebook, too.
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@NJChicaa (124473)
• United States
1 Aug
@DaddyEvil all but 3 of the books in this unit are cookbooks. I also have a huge binder of recipes I’ve found online and liked.
2 people like this
@LindaOHio (199423)
• United States
2 Aug
I don't like recipes with weights in them.
1 person likes this
• United States
1 Aug
On this, I am in agreement. Weight measurements are truly stupid. I have a conversion chart but I guess I'm not that much of a chef where exact measurements matter. I haven't used my scale in over a decade. My wife wanted to meal prep and HAD to have this digital scale. She used it for a couple of months, then it became a dust collector. Honest? It would have been really nice to have that digital scale back in 1980 I have at least that many cookbooks here as what your photo shows.
1 person likes this
@RasmaSandra (88495)
• Daytona Beach, Florida
1 Aug
I used to read cookbooks like regular books, But now I don't have any cookbooks anymore and just wing it when I have to,
1 person likes this