Weight Does Matter

An Experiment That Revealed Some Surprising Results

Hello!

There are two books on my radar that I’ve added to my shopping list. The first is an Indian cookbook for kids by Priya Krishna called Priya’s Kitchen Adventures, which I’ll send to my godson in Sydney. I’m excited about this book because it’s a wonderful and fun way to expose kids early on to a culture they might otherwise be unfamiliar with. The next is not a cookbook but a travel book on Portugal by Christine Chitnis called Patterns of Portugal. A few years ago, we were planning a trip to Portugal, and the pandemic hit; we shelved the idea and intended to return to it someday. As expected, we haven’t, and as soon as I saw this gorgeous book, I knew it would be the catalyst I needed to get back to planning. Today, we’re talking about the results of the experiment y’all helped me out with and a brand new recipe to make.

Paddington snoozing before our morning walk

Have a great week,

Nik

🥕🥕🥕 My NEW COOKBOOK, VEG-TABLE, is now named a Best Cookbook of 2023 and is available worldwide! Please check it out, and thank you for your support. If you have a moment to spare, please leave a review for Veg-Table on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Waterstones, or the many indie bookstores where you purchased the book. Thank you! 

This week, I’ve got a new recipe for you: this smoky and moreish Andalusian-Style Chickpea and Spinach Stew that is perfect for winter. I strongly recommend eating it with toasted slices of buttered bread and making a big pot!

Why Weight Matters

Last week, I asked you to help me with a small experiment. The task: weigh and report the weight of 1 cup of water, all-purpose flour, and chocolate chips. I intentionally didn’t provide any extra instructions because I didn’t want to skew the results in any particular direction. My goal with this experiment was to understand how cup measures translated in different kitchens (we had several international participants). I wanted people to approach weighing these ingredients like they normally would if they were making a recipe from a cookbook or elsewhere.

What The Scales Said

Most folks reported the weights in grams (which made me very happy; I’m pro-gram), and surprisingly, about 10% reported their weights in ounces and one in fluid ounces (for water). I converted all the weights to grams to play around in Excel and sorted them into ranges of weights (categories) to make it easier to visualize the numbers. What you see in each graph is the frequency or, rather, how many times a weight was reported in that range.

1 Cup of Water

The weight of pure water is known; 100 ml of water weighs 100 g. The weight reported would depend on how the water was measured and what was used to measure it. Liquids should be measured in a liquid measuring cup, which should clock at 240 ml. I should also point out that there is a difference between American and U.K. (and most of the world) cup measures - 1 cup in the U.K. is set to 250 ml.

The graph below shows a wide range of measures from 214 to 294 g, with most people reporting weights near 240 g. When I measured water in my kitchen, I saw similar numbers. Here’s what I did. I kept my chemistry Pyrex beaker on the scale; I use it to measure liquids in my kitchen because I know it’s graded correctly. I set my scale to zero. First, I filled my 1 cup OXO beaker with water and transferred the water to my Pyrex beaker, and the scale read 220 g. I also noticed that the water level wasn’t near where it should be on the gradient marked on my beaker. I know you’re not supposed to use dry measuring cups for liquids, but I wanted to understand how different they might be. I repeated the process with my dry ingredient-measuring cups (I own three different ones made by different companies) to see what would happen; the number was even lower this time: 212 g, 229 g, and 220 g.

Does a difference of 20 ml really matter? That’s a little over 1 Tbsp. Most folks will say it doesn’t. I agree with this sentiment but with reservations. It all depends on context, and many recipes can be flexible so that these differences might be irrelevant. 20 ml of a liquid like water, milk, or oil might not make a big difference when adding a cup when preparing a soup, a stew, or even when frying food. However, the absence of 20 ml in a recipe might affect the texture of a cake, bread, or cookie. The type of ingredient being measured also matters; if I use too much or too little vinegar or lemon juice in a recipe, its effect on taste and texture can be disastrous. This numerical difference in weights can also manifest itself in a very different way. Imagine making a soup with 8 cups of water or stock; each cup is 20 ml less than it should be. At the end of the recipe, I’m now 160 ml short. When I serve people soup, I use a ladle. If my ladle accurately picks up 1 cup of soup every time, the last bowl will be 240 ml - 160 ml = 80 ml or 1/3 cup less than it should be. In this instance, a small error gets amplified and accumulated to make a bigger impact, and whoever gets the last 2/3 cup of soup will be pretty annoyed.

Let’s move on to the next ingredient: flour.

1 cup of All-Purpose Flour

Flour is one of the most controversial ingredients in the recipe world. Every media outlet and notable test kitchen reports a different weight.

One cup of all-purpose flour is:

120 g to King Arthur Baking Company,

128 g at the New York Times,

130 g at Bon Appetit,

136 g at All Recipes, and

140 g to Cook’s Illustrated (this is what I use).

This would drive me nuts if I were learning how to cook. I wouldn’t know who to trust. If you look at the weights reported in the graph below, you’ll see that the numbers go from 120 g all the way up to 178.4 g.

How did this happen? It depends on the size of your dry cup measure and how it was filled with flour. In the water experiment, I’ve already shown you how the three different dry cups measured different amounts of water. Dipping a cup measure into a bag of flour makes a big difference in weight. If you level the top of the cup with a flat knife, tap the cup, or pack it down to squeeze in more flour, they will give you different weights. If the flour is pre-sifted, the weight will be lower; 1 cup of sifted flour weighs 120 g. Flour might resemble a powder, but remember, it’s like a bunch of microscopic rubber balls in a bag. There are tiny pockets of space between each of these tiny balls, and when pressed together, the space between those balls is minimized. More flour can be packed into the cup, and the weight increases. When baking, I recommend sticking to the weights in the recipe; it takes the same time to measure, and you’ll work with the correct ratios.

Chocolate chips will help illustrate this point of air pockets even better.

1 cup of Chocolate Chips

I stick to 180 g of chocolate chips for every cup in my recipes, and most folks reported numbers pretty close to that. However, some numbers were vastly different. The shape and size of chocolate chips matter when it comes to weighing. Chopped, chunks, and chips of chocolate vary in size (mini, medium, and large) and shape and will define how much goes into a measuring cup. Depending on how they’re picked up and packed into a cup will also define the final weight. Unlike flour, it’s easier to visually see the big gaps of air pockets between the chips. Press and squeeze those chips into a cup, and you can keep adding more chips in. If you look at the results below, the variation will likely point to a difference in the size and shape of the chocolate and how the cup was filled. In fact, a few people who participated sent notes to tell me which brand of chocolate chip they used. We also have one less participant in this study because they didn’t have chocolate chips at home.

A side note: In the case of chocolate chips, the impact of size matters differently. Imagine you’re making two batches of a chocolate chip cookie recipe. In one set, you use 180 g of regular-size chips; in the other, you use the same weight, 180 g of large chocolate chips. The distribution of the chocolate chips within the cookie dough will be different between these two recipes, which will impact the taste and texture the eater experiences when they bite into the cookie.

Weighing In

Most chefs and cooks will agree that weighing your ingredients is the best way to cook. If you’re reading a recipe and the weights are listed next to the volumes, I recommend using the weights or at least using them as a guide to help you out.

I’ve got two scales in my kitchen: This Zwilling Enfinigy Scale that can go up to 22 lbs/10 kg, and for those moments when I need to measure small quantities, I switch to this mini scale (this mini scale also comes with a handy standard 100 g metal weight that I use to make sure my scales are working efficiently). Check the cup measures you use at home with water, and if they’re off, make a note and adjust accordingly when you cook. Always ensure the surface you set the scale on is even, flat, and smooth (a spirit level will tell you if it is; another option is to use the Measure app on an iPhone), or the weight will be off. Lab scales come with built-in spirit levels and adjustable legs that help solve this problem. Home scales don’t. Contractors typically do a great job keeping counter surfaces at the correct level when they build them, but if you still feel your scale is off and you’re doing everything else right, it’s a good idea to check the counter.

When you measure liquids, use liquid measuring cups. Always look at the meniscus or the top curved surface of the liquid. The curve will be concave for water and water-based liquids, and the bottom of the curve should align with the markings on the measuring cup. The curve will be convex for oils and oil-based liquids, and the top of the curve should align with the markings on the measuring cup.

In this exercise, we didn’t get into the weight of vegetables and fruits. They can vary considerably across the world. For example, onions can vary from 60 to 400 g depending on how they’re sorted. So, knowing how much a small or large onion weighs is crucial when cooking, or it’s better to list the weight of a cup of chopped onions in a recipe.

At the end of the day, we all want the recipe to work. Weights are a more accurate way to go about things. Volumetric measurements aren’t the worst, but their limitations are something we need to be mindful of.