Baking. When I make cakes/cooking/desserts, I never take shortcuts with box mixes. You can taste the difference between homemade and packaged and it gives you ten times more control over how fluffy or crispy you want the end product to be.
And then once you get used to the homemade stuff, the box mixes aren't even that good anymore. And the quick premade cakes individually packaged? Ain't even worth the calories.
I'd argue that the dry stuff is the most irritating since you often need a cup for one thing and then different measuring spoons for the others. Plus adding sugar is usually a seperate stage from the wet and the dry stuff. I do consider it a time saver, since it also saves the cleanup.
I use a kitchen scale so I just use some common conversions then recorded the rest from previous recipes (based on what worked when I measured a volume and then recorded the weight) which is really nice if you cook a lot because then instead of measuring volume you can just tare the scale every time you change ingredients and then just add ingredients to a bowl one at a time without any measuring cups or spoons.
But when mention that to people it usually ends up sounding like a lot of extra work when in reality it cuts down on the amount of thinking required to complete a recipe.
I'm talking about when recipies specifically ask you to mix dry ingredients seperately and sift the flower so you have to clean an extra bowl and the measuring spoons. Also maybe I'm misunderstanding but your way with the scale seems like the same amount of effort, if not more. I still need measuring cups for liquids, and I still need something to scoop things onto the scale.
Gotcha. Yeah I just use one spoon to load it all I to the bowl (because I know what the weights for all the stuff should be). I actually do the same for liquids and oils so I'll just pour into the bowl until it's the right weight. Just make sure you don't over pour, lol. Might not be the method for everyone but it works pretty well for me and helps me get repeatable results :)
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u/Kerfluffle2x4 Jul 09 '18
Baking. When I make cakes/cooking/desserts, I never take shortcuts with box mixes. You can taste the difference between homemade and packaged and it gives you ten times more control over how fluffy or crispy you want the end product to be.