Baking Thoughts - The Myth of Precision

Almost every baking book stresses the importance of measuring the ingredients carefully and accurately. And many bakers swear by using weight rather than volume to portion flour, sugar etc. This piece of advice caused much stress when I first started out baking. Every cup of flour was leveled with a knife, then sifted and weighed, and a little spoon used to scoop some flour in or out when there's a variance of one gram. Repeat for sugar, then baking powder and every single ingredient listed. Inevitably, I will come to the eggs, and the anxiousness starts. Large eggs? What's considered large, or small? Since American portions are usually bigger, are their "large eggs" larger than Asian eggs too? There was a time I stood at the supermarket aisle looking through the different brands of eggs, trying to figure out which eggs among the hundreds look the "largest".

Yes, my worries were extreme. All because of the advice - in baking, unlike cooking, measure your ingredients accurately

After many (failed more than successful) baking attempts, I now know better. Rather than stressing over the 5g differences, it's more important to know how to adjust the recipe when your baking results did not turn out the way you expected. How many times have you followed the recipe to the letter and find that it flopped?

If you have the time and money, the best way is of course to experiment and adjust the recipe according to your baking results. However, we rarely want to risk our costly French butter and imported vanilla beans on such risky ventures. Luckily there's an alternative, ie. do your homework (yes mummy!). There are thousands of different variations for each creme brulee, vanilla cupcake recipe, but which is the best one? In that respect, baking forums and recipe reviewers are your best friend. Here are two of my favourite websites:

www.chowhound.com
www.allrecipes.com

Both have lots of experienced cooks willing to share reviews and tips of their baking attempts.

So, stop getting all paranoid about that little teaspoon of flour that's causing the 3g difference. Instead, go through your recipe books, google the recipes online, read the reviews, incorporate the tips, and you are ready to get those electric beaters going.


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