Cookaholics Bulletin Board

Since most of us here prefer to weigh ingredients instead of using volume measurements, I thought it would be good to have a thread to post weights of ingredients that never seem to get published in recipes (even CI). I was making CI's Foolproof Chocolate Frosting last night, and although CI goes through all the trouble to provide weight measurements for the flour and powdered sugar, they didn't post the weight for the cocoa . So how much does 3/4 cup of cocoa weigh?

I used the scoop and sweep method and got 2.75 ounces. Therefore 1 cup would be 3.67 ounces. Does anyone else have a different weight they use?

How about peanut butter? I get 9 ounces per cup (I think that is from Kurt back on TOBB. Or maybe I'm just smoking some funny cigarettes.)

How about 1 cup of corn syrup? It's so much easier to measure by weight for these sticky types of ingredients, but I don't have a good reference.

Please weigh in (groan).

Another CI recipe (Sablés) puts 1/4 cup of cocoa at 1 ounce.

If you are making a CI recipe that calls for bread, it's 1.25 ounces per slice.

According to my Wolfram program:

1 cup of peanut butter = 9.1 oz./0.57 lb./260 grams
1 cup of cocoa = 9.7 oz./0.61 lb/270 grams
1 cup of corn syrup = 12. oz/0.78 lb/350 grams

Hope this helps.....

I think the pb and corn syrup sound about right, but I don't think 1 cup of cocoa weighs 9.7 oz. - - even if you pack it in.

JB - I find it...entertaining that CI would deign to publish the weight of cocoa for that recipe but not for others. Sigh.

I have compiled about 100 different ingredients into an excel sheet. I broke it down by both ounces and grams (or fl ounces & ml where appropriate). Some came from CI, some from the chart that came with my Salter scale, and some from The Book of Yields.

I break it down by cup, half, third, quarter, and tablespoon. If anyone knows a way to convert an Excel spreadsheet to a post here, I'll be happy to share it.

cocoa:

1 cup = 3.25 ounces / 92 grams
1/2 cup = 1.6 ounces / 46 grams
1/3 cup = 1.1 ounces / 31 grams
1/4 cup = .8 ounces / 23 grams
1 Tbsp = .2 ounces / 5.7 grams

According to the box in my cupboard, 1 Tbsp = 5 grams, so given differences in rounding, this is probably pretty close.

Thanks for the info. everyone. I'm going to check the chart that came with my salter scale. They have listed a bunch of items. If I find anything interesting, I'll post it.
Nancy

SS,

You could create it as a Google Spreadsheet, and then post a sharing link on the board.

Now, the bad news:

Weighing ingredients is no more accurate than measuring them by volume.

Yes, really. CI and many others like to pretend otherwise, but the truth is, no matter how you measure your ingredients, it's going to be a matter of "combine, and adjust until correct". Always.

Why? One big reason is ambient humidity.

I was noticing this this winter. One thing I make a lot of is pizza dough. I have the recipe memorized, and I know exactly the right texture. Circumstantially, I happened to make pizza dough a week apart, once at my in-laws, and once at home. My in-laws' place is 35-40% humidity durning the winter, and they keep the flour in the fridge. My apartment is 70-80% humidity and I keep the flour out.

Result? The pizza dough at home required over 1/2 cup less water than the one at my in-laws. Because I was curious about how this would affect weights, I weighed it; at my in-laws, I had to add 6oz more water than I did at my apartment. The flour in both places came from the same mill and was bought on the same day.

Yet, one 18oz bowl of flour had 6oz more water in it than the other one did. This means that, had I measured it by weight, I'd have ended up with 6oz less actual flour ... a 1/3 difference. For this particular case, measuring by volume happened to be more accurate than by weight, but either is subject to a hefty fudge factor. And no "by weight" recipe can be scientifically accurate unless it includes ambient humidity, grain size, producer, altitude, age and storage conditions of ingredients.

I've been thinking about that for a while, as you can guess. Am I hijacking the thread?

Josh,

I agree. While the high desert (yes, that's what this area is considered) isn't exactly known for it's humidity, I can tell you we have to completely adjust our recipes at work during monsoon season (the one time a year it can actually be kind of humid here). At the same time, however, I'd still say weighing is more accurate than going by volume...you just have to adjust here and there.

Amy

Your argument does not support this. What you are arguing is that recipes are not constant/invariant of ambient conditions (and probably quite a few other conditions as well, such as precise origin of ingredient, etc). That doesn't mean weighing is not more accurate, it means that more accuracy may not achieve foolproof recipes.

I'd expect more precision from a guy with that much beard Must be the CEO thing eating into it....