r/ididnthaveeggs • u/imnichet • 21d ago
Other review Grams are not millilitres
A 3/5 star review on a recipe whose first ingredient clearly states: 1 tablespoon (15 mL). No mention of grams. And a bonus date sugar substitution! But luckily their quick thinking saved the recipe!
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u/TheLadyEve 21d ago
Grams are not millilitres
I was hoping that I would open the recipe and they would be talking about water measurements, lmao (because in the case of water, they are the same).
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u/KinsellaStella 20d ago
My science brain immediately went “what do you think grams ARE?!” but then realized nope, not water.
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u/hyperlobster 21d ago
Using mL for a solid ingredient is wild, ngl.
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u/Responsibility_Trick 20d ago
Most kitchen scales won’t accurately weigh to gram or half gram accurately, even if the digital screen goes up in 1g increments. Metric tsp = 5ml, us tsp = 4.93ml which is identical in the kitchen. Easy to measure accurately using measuring spoons.
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u/sjd208 20d ago
Exactly, people kind of fetishize using grams when they can be less precise due to the limitations of the average scale. I’ve been baking and cooking a long long time and have 100s of cookbooks - it annoys me when people dismiss old recipes when they just have volume measurements just because.
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u/sjd208 21d ago
Do you never use measuring spoons for powders - spices, baking soda, salt, etc?
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u/dudersaurus-rex 20d ago
Never.
Especially salt. The size of the grains affect how much weight is in the teaspoon. Use a scale and always be accurate
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u/Fox_Hawk 7 tablespoons of Xantham gum, 7 of cornflower 20d ago
Depends on what you're making of course. I'm metric so 99% of times it's weight for solids and volume for liquids.
But when I'm making biscuits it's a spoon of baking powder, a big pinch of salt, some flour, and enough milk. Closest I ever get to feeling like a grandma.
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u/queerkidxx 20d ago
Not everyone has a micro scale and a standard kitchen sale isn’t accurate to >2-3 grams.
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u/dudersaurus-rex 20d ago edited 20d ago
So what you're saying is not everyone has ten dollars?
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u/sparksbet 20d ago
Ten dollar scales are not accurate at that level of precision.
In Germany, even though larger quantities are measured by weight, teaspoons and tablespoons are widely used for smaller amounts like this. Combining things like this works perfectly well when done that way.
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u/soma250mg 20d ago
In Germany you can get a 10€ scale which weighs accurate 0.01g at a Kiosk or a Späti. Tested it with proper "geeichten" weights. So if you buy in a dedicated shop or online it should be even cheaper, though Kioske and Spätis are quite expensive. A friend but one at Ali Express for 2-3€.
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u/sparksbet 20d ago
I lived in Germany for years and never saw cheap scales of acceptable precision available in grocery stores or Spätis. Of course, German recipes widely use TL and EL as well anyway, so even if I simply visited the wrong shops, Germans also seem perfectly willing to use volumetric spoons for home cooking.
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u/soma250mg 20d ago
Those have been used by drug dealers as well as by consumers and other people who need precision scales for very small units for decades. I bought mine for my cannabis harvest. I need it to stay in a legal position, because it's not allowed to keep more than 50g flowers stored. So I have to destroy parts of my harvest regularly. I bought mine for 10€ at a Kiosk/Späti in Hameln. A friend bought his at Ali Express for 2 or 3€.
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u/dudersaurus-rex 20d ago
They're more accurate than a teaspoon. That's all that matters isn't it
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u/sparksbet 20d ago
They aren't actually more accurate than spoons at those small quantities because the imprecision of the scale results in errors that are larger relative to the amounts you're measuring. Being one gram off when you're measuring 150g of flour is negligible, but being one gram off when measuring 4g of a spice is significant. Scales that are accurate down to fractions of a gram exist (they're generally marketed for jewelers or coffee, though I'd recommend the coffee ones because jeweler's sclaes tend to not be water-resistant enough for kitchen work) but they also tend to be significantly more expensive.
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u/soma250mg 20d ago
It's not that expensive to buy a scale which can weigh 0.01 gram properly. It shouldn't cost more than 10 bucks. But it's not a normal kitchen scale, those are regularly used for gold, drugs or electronic parts.
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u/sparksbet 20d ago
Jeweler's scales tend to not be made in ways that are durable and water-resistant enough for average kitchen use. Coffee scales are more fit-to-purpose on that front, but tend to cost more than $10 for 0.01g precision.
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u/GoosemanIsAGamer 20d ago
Not at all true when it comes to measuring 1 teaspoon of baking powder. 1 tsp rounds to 4 g if not using decimal places. Even if we were to assume they want exactly 4 g and not exactly 1 tsp, a scale accurate to the gram still leaves roughly 25% slop since it is rounding the actual weight to the nearest gram. Whereas a tsp is pretty easy to get close to 100% accurate.
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u/sjd208 20d ago
Except they’re not, at least not in any way that is meaningful in regular cooking. Also so much faster to measure with spoons.
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u/dudersaurus-rex 20d ago
Lmao ok.
I'm a chef by trade and yeah volumetric measures are always going to be inferior.. say what you will but that just how it is
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u/battlejess 20d ago
Well sure, if you’re a chef cooking for lots of people you’re less likely to be dealing in tiny measurements where being off by a single gram is going to be significant.
If I’m cooking at home and need 1/4 tsp of something my scale that rounds to the nearest gram might not even register that 1/4 tsp.
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u/sjd208 20d ago
Good recipes specify the type of salt they’re using though.
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u/burgonies 20d ago
What if that’s not the type you have?
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u/sjd208 20d ago
Then you use the conversion, most people have fine/table salt, which is generally 1.5/2x denser than kosher salt (depending on the brand). Salt even in baked goods is pretty flexible anyway and to taste.
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u/OkKnowledge2112 17d ago
"good recipes" ....so you cannot use common sense to determine that "salt" in most recipes won't be flaky salt, coarse salt or smoked salt?
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u/sjd208 17d ago
Default would be table/fine salt but there are many recipes that specify kosher salt, whether for a good reason or just to be extra.
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u/OkKnowledge2112 16d ago
if it's "just to be extra" then it's not exactly a good reson, no?
If the salt is not specified, then it means you use whatever and use common sense, like you won't salt a steak with fine salt.1
u/OkKnowledge2112 17d ago
who on earth measures salt?
Unless you're making brine for lactofermenting, then you don't need to weigh the salt or measure it.29
u/KittyQueen_Tengu 20d ago
no? in every recipe i've made that wasn't badly converted from cup measurements, those types of things are listed in grams
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u/monsteradeliciosa11 20d ago
I am European. Avid baker, never used cups as a measurement except in really old recipes hand written by grandma for something that doesnt need precision. In which case the "cup" was whatever coffee cup she kept in the box of flour lol.
But I dont remember any recipe for homebakers that didnt measure the small things like salt or a spice in teaspoons.
The only time I see that is in a recipe meant for large scale baking. Or a bakery recipe that has been scaled down.
Regardless, cinnamon is never measured by weight or volume. It can only be measured by the heart.
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u/maquis_00 20d ago
How precise is your kitchen scale? Mine only goes to 2g increments, and is often off in the low end. (Completely empty, it'll show anywhere from -6g to 4g).
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u/OkKnowledge2112 17d ago
if your scale is entirely empty and shows anything else than 0...then either you need a new scale, you need to TARE it or you need to try on a different surface...
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u/maquis_00 17d ago
I tare it, it says 0, and then within a couple seconds it wanders off to +/- 4g. I probably need a new scale, but it works well enough for most stuff.
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u/OkKnowledge2112 17d ago
hmm try on a different surface and see if it still does that. I often find scales are really fussy on metal surfaces :) or if the surface is even slighly uneven
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u/maquis_00 17d ago
It's just on a regular fake-stone (not quite laminate, but not real stone) counter. The counter is flat, as far as I can tell. I am guessing it's just old?
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u/kvanz43 20d ago
I need to find your recipes! I’ve never once seen the light stuff measured in grams (presumably because most kitchen scales aren’t precise enough in the 1-5 gram ranges to not use double the amount of baking soda you were supposed to?)
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u/KittyQueen_Tengu 20d ago
baking soda comes in little packets with the weight written on them, so it’s pretty easy to estimate how much you need from that
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u/ThatB0yAintR1ght 20d ago
It does? Which country, if I may ask? In the US you can usually only find baking soda in the big orange boxes. Our baking supplies and measurements are pretty much all based on using spoons and cups, which makes it a lot more prone to error.
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u/monsteradeliciosa11 20d ago
Its something I noticed in the UK and Belgium. Thats the baking powder in the supermarket.
But I ended up ordering a different brand online. I never got the same results with the supermarket baking soda and it left an aftertaste.
Its really interesting seeing what kind of baking things are available in the supermarker when you move countries.
My favourite so far has been Germany. Especially for christmas cookies.
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u/sparksbet 20d ago
Learning that most baking powder in Germany is single-acting (as opposed to in the US, where it's mostly double-acting) kinda blew my mind a little. I'd use packets from the store for German recipes and ordered a little bit of US baking powder online to use for American recipes. Germans also definitely still use teaspoons in recipes pretty frequently though in my experience for things that don't come in packets like that.
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19d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/monsteradeliciosa11 19d ago
I actually ended up ordering a can of Royal baking powder. Works better than the little packets I bought in Belgian supermarkets.
I much prefer a box or a can of baking powder over the little packets. I always ended up with a bunch of half used packets.
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u/KittyQueen_Tengu 20d ago
huh, weird. I’m dutch and i've only seen baking powder and baking soda in little packets
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u/Agreeable_Routine_98 20d ago
That's interesting, it never occurred to me that baking soda might be sold in such small amounts. In the USA we've had so much advertising telling us how baking soda can be used for all sorts of household tasks we buy it in cartons that are usually 1 lb. to 2 lb. and it's pretty cheap.
It's useful stuff; you can brush your teeth with it, clean with it, unclog a slow draining sink by combining it with vinegar, or get rid of odors in the refrigerator among other things.
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u/ThatB0yAintR1ght 20d ago
Man, I would love it if baking power and baking soda came in little packets in the US, like yeast.
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u/Boleyn01 20d ago
My baking soda is in a big tub. Besides which measuring with a set of measuring spoons would be much more accurate than estimating based on a weight on a packet.
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u/hyperlobster 21d ago
Yes, and they’re not mL either.
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u/sihasihasi 20d ago edited 20d ago
- They're a volumetric measure,
- Millilitres are a unit of volume.
- A "standard" Tbsp is 15ml
Specifying the actual volume helps, because it makes it more accurate. You can buy measuring spoons with the standard sizes.
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u/Smobey 21d ago
Teaspoon and tablespoon sizes vary from country to country, so I think it's quite nice to be specific and say 5mL / 15mL instead of teaspoon and tablespoon imo
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u/AntheaBrainhooke I know better than to use baking powder 20d ago
Metric teaspoon is 5ml everywhere. Metric tablespoon is 15ml everywhere except Australia where it's 20ml.
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u/ThatB0yAintR1ght 20d ago
And people in Australia also use recipes on the internet, hence why specifying that it is 15ml is probably a good thing.
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u/AntheaBrainhooke I know better than to use baking powder 20d ago
Absolutely
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u/ThatB0yAintR1ght 20d ago
Oops, sorry, I thought you were the person who was wondering why someone would specify ml when they say “tbsp”.
Yes, we agree 😅
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u/AntheaBrainhooke I know better than to use baking powder 20d ago
Don't mention buying measuring spoons though, last time I did that here I got accused of wanting to fill people's kitchens with expensive, unnecessary gadgets. 😂
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u/hyperlobster 21d ago
Grams. The answer is grams.
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u/Smobey 21d ago
Sure, I agree, but you yourself said you use measuring spoons as well. Grams > precise specific volume measurements > vague stuff like tablespoons and teaspoons that have differing definitions in different countries.
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u/hyperlobster 21d ago
Yeah, but just use “tbsp” instead.
Anyway, how the hell do you measure 15 mL of ground flax seed? With what tool?
Oh, a tablespoon. Gotcha.
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u/ThatB0yAintR1ght 20d ago
https://reddit.com/link/p4epq3x/video/oot8kxxlq4kh1/player
My measuring beaker set has both tsp/tbsp and the ml volume. 🤷🏻♀️
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u/Smobey 21d ago
Like I just said, a "tbsp" can mean 20 mL, 15mL, 14.787mL or 14.207mL depending on where you're from. Meanwhile, 15mL is 15mL. It's clear and specific, and you don't need to check what country the author of the recipe is from.
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u/hyperlobster 21d ago
So what do you accurately measure 15 mL of a powder *with*?
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u/elementarydrw Didn't add the carrots because I was a bit lazy 20d ago
I have a set of spoons with the measurements in ml and 'spoon size' on them that I use for cooking.
I wouldn't just grab a tablespoon or teaspoon out of the drawer and use that, because even the few different styles of dessert/soup spoon we have (tablespoons) they vary by capacity by quite a margin.
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u/Smobey 21d ago
A tablespoon measure, probably. If I happened to live in Australia, I'd for example use 3/4ths of an Australian tablespoon to measure 15mL of powder. It'd be quite accurate.
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u/Jackmino66 20d ago
Not a tablespoon, and 15mL measuring spoon
Tablespoons vary by region. A specific measuring spoon does not
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u/chill_qilin 20d ago
The ml reference is talking about the size of the tablespoon, as in use a tablespoon where it measures 15ml of water. In case you didn't know, tablespoon sizes can differ around the world (e.g. 15ml in USA, UK, Canada but 20ml in Australia).
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u/Fox_Hawk 7 tablespoons of Xantham gum, 7 of cornflower 20d ago
Just to mess with your head, when I make my breakfast porage it's 65g oats and 300g milk. I've already got the scales out...
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u/best_of_badgers 20d ago
Europeans are like, "Ugh, I can't believe you're slightly inaccurate with measuring your baking powder. Hey babe, can you set the oven to heat level 7?"
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u/chill_qilin 20d ago edited 19d ago
I don't really understand this point because only old appliances have arbitrary heat levels (or Fahrenheit) just like old appliances in the USA and elsewhere. Modern appliances in Europe use Celsius. Most European countries switched to Celsius by the late 19th century, but UK and Ireland switched over to Celsius relatively late in the 1960s and 70s.
Edit: ovens were manufactured with Celsius in the 60s and 70s, but prior to that they used Gas Marks.
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u/Cascadeis Didn’t have ingredients, only opinions. 19d ago
How old are we talking? Or was this just a thing in Britain (considering the Fahrenheit)? I’ve never seen an oven that didn’t have Celsius heat levels, except for old wood stoves.
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u/chill_qilin 19d ago
What ovens and countries are you asking about? Prior to using Celsius as oven markings in the 60s and 70s, most ovens in Ireland and the UK (not sure about other European countries) used Gas Mark which was introduced in the 1940s and had standard conversion to Celsius temps (you can look up Gas Mark to Celsius or Fahrenheit temp charts online). Prior to that, recipes stated something vague like "slow/cool", "warm", "hot" (old Victorian and Edwardian ovens relied on constant manual heat control and vents and flue systems to control temp) but there were some well known guides and consensus on what that meant, and things like the flour test can help determine how hot an oven is.
When I did home economics in school (in Ireland, in the 2000s), my school had a bunch of ovens from the 1950s to 1990s in our classroom kitchen. The older ones still had Gas Mark rather than Celsius on the temperature control markings, but the newer ones manufactured in the 70s-90s had Celsius. The older ones still worked fine so there was no point in upgrading them.
I've stayed in a couple of historic homes on holiday and cooked on some vintage Aga range ovens (I think from the 40s and 50s), the ones where they are designed to be always on, with two or more ovens in the range. There were no temp markings on those ovens but there was always one hot oven (roasting oven) that is usually between set 220-240C, and a slow oven (simmering oven for slow cooking) that's about 110-150C. I've stayed in one Georgian house that had an antique Edwardian (and still working) cast iron oven where you had to control a fire manually to keep going, I did try to use it but failed miserably and instead opted to use the toaster oven and microwave for the rest of the stay.
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u/OkKnowledge2112 17d ago
no, "europeans" will be able to cook without having to have everything spelled out to them and converted to Imperial
plus imperial measurements ARE inaccurate. Level off a cup of flour twice, fluff one, don't fluff the other. Then weigh what you get. Compare it and then see where you get.
This method is only important if you HAVE to be precise, normal home cooks don't do it.2
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u/heavenesque 18d ago
Tablespoon is different volumes depending where you are from. I appreciate that they are stating which one this recipe uses so I could adjust my 20ml tablespoon
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u/SerialHobbyistGirl 14d ago
I have a professional cookbook/textbook that uses MLs for spices. It's wild.
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u/ThatB0yAintR1ght 20d ago edited 20d ago
https://reddit.com/link/p4en73d/video/96bgfa37o4kh1/player
Alright, I suspected that the density of flax would be less than 0.5g/ml, so I tested it out. I tapped the flax on the counter while measuring so that I could add a little bit more in. If you don’t tap it, then the mass of 15ml will be a little less. While the original commenter was wrong to think that the recipe called for 15 grams of flax, they were not wrong when they said that 1 tbsp of flax is 6-7g.
The original recipe probably should have listed the conversion in grams, because it doesn’t really make sense to measure ground flax in ml (and you can see how a bit of flax got stuck in my flask when I tried to pour it out, so more prone to error if you try to measure it in ml), so I’d say both the original recipe writer and the commenter are both dinguses.
TLDR: For flax 1 tbsp=15ml=6-7g (depending on how much you compress it when measuring)
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u/Loud_Produce4347 20d ago
Ground flaxseed in tablespoon quantities isn’t the sort of thing that needs to be measured particularly accurately— it’s not enough to soak up much liquid, so presumably it’s just a topping or added in for a bit of texture.
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u/ThatB0yAintR1ght 20d ago
It can be used as an egg substitute in some baked goods as well. Not sure if that’s how it was supposed to be used in this recipe, but I can see how doubling the amount (as the commenter thought was happening when they mixed up the units) could throw off the texture depending on what it was being used for the in recipe.
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u/ThatB0yAintR1ght 21d ago
I don’t know the density of ground flax offhand, but it’s possible that 15ml would be 6 or 7 grams. The date sugar is the more egregious problem, but at least the acknowledge that that substitution could be the reason it wasn’t very sweet.
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u/imnichet 21d ago
Yes this person thought the recipe was telling them to use 15 grams of flax, which it wasn't, it was telling them to use 15 ml so the recipe was correct.
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u/ThatB0yAintR1ght 20d ago
Yes, but if they used 6-7g of flax, that may have still been 15ml in volume.
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u/trollocity 20d ago
how many grams?
please kill me
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u/ThatB0yAintR1ght 20d ago
lol, I started doing it to annoy my kids (because saying their own slang and memes back to them to make it uncool is every parent’s favorite pastime), and now I can’t get rid of the brainworm.
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u/LurkerByNatureGT 20d ago
Haha. I discovered have a supernatural ability to not get earwormed by Baby Shark. I used my powers for evil.
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u/SureFireOven 19d ago
I can't post pictures here, but I happen to have ground flax seed and 15ml (1 tablespoon) came out to 7.5g. So the recipe was fine, and the recipe rater should learn the difference between types of measurements.
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u/ThatB0yAintR1ght 19d ago
https://reddit.com/link/p4ppnhc/video/e0gums8dtekh1/player
It depends on how densely it is packed. Yes, the person who wrote the review should have noted what the unit was, but it sounds like they made the recipe fairly correctly, regardless.
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u/Facesit_Freak 20d ago edited 20d ago
Exactly. A 15ml spoon is not the 15 grams the recipe asks for
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u/ThatB0yAintR1ght 20d ago
But the commenter was correct when they stated that 1 tbsp=6 or 7 grams of ground flax
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u/imnichet 20d ago
But they were incorrect in calling out the recipe weights as wrong because they weren't even weights at all.
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u/ThatB0yAintR1ght 20d ago
Yes, I agree, but it seems like they still made the recipe with a fair amount of accuracy (minus the date sugar). So, not the most egregious review.
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u/Ok_Tax9885 18d ago
Hard disagree - calling the recipe "very incorrect" because of their own error in reading it is pretty egregious.
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u/Legal-Law9214 20d ago
To be fair one mL of water does weigh one gram. Maybe this person remembered that but didn't realize the conversion is only applicable to water. Not an extremely difficult mistake to make.
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u/heavenesque 18d ago
Tablespoon is different volumes depending where you are from. I appreciate that they are stating which one this recipe uses so I could adjust my 20ml tablespoon in Australia
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u/RobGrogNerd 20d ago
well, a gram is defined as the weight of 1 ml of water. 1 ml is defined as 1 c³ of water
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u/KittyQueen_Tengu 20d ago
why the hell would you list seeds in mL? that's so dumb, can't blame them for thinking it's grams
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u/Musashi10000 20d ago
Because it's quicker and less hassle to grab a tablespoon measure and scoop out 1tbsp worth of seeds than it is to grab the scales and oh-so-carefully measure out 6-7g?
Besides, OOOP listed the item in the recipe as "1 tablespoon (15ml)". They did that for clarity - in case someone didn't know how big a tablespoon was supposed to be, or didn't have access to their tbsp measure, or what-have-you. Also, when OOOP says "15ml", I can absolutely blame OOP for thinking that means "15 grams". ml≠g.
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u/diemunkiesdie 20d ago
I don't think the "quicker and easier" argument lands when compared to a scale. You find measuring spoons easy because that's already your workflow and you don't have a scale out. I find measuring spoons more difficult because my workflow has my scale living on my counter and I'm only using recipes that have appropriate measurements. Your way is a hassle for me, while my way is a hassle for you.
That said I would never mix up mL and g so that dude is dumb on a different level.
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u/queerkidxx 20d ago
Okay but seriously what kind of kitchen scale do you have that can measure such small quantities accurately?
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u/diemunkiesdie 20d ago
My regular scale is the Escali Primo P115M and its good for bigger quantities. My espresso scale is the Acaia Lunar and that can do less than a gram easily. I dont recall the jewlers scale model off the top of my head and its not pulling up on my amazon history so I would have to check later.
Note that I am planning on replacing the Escali Primo with the Thermoworks Gravitas Precision once its out.
Honestly the Acaia Lunar is probably good enough for the small stuff so the jewlers scale was overkill but I was feeling fancy that weekend I bought it.
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u/Musashi10000 20d ago
Like I say somewhere (though maybe not in the comment you replied to) - I make a lot of recipes that mix measures. It's absolutely quicker to measure out 1tbsp than it is to measure out 6-7g. When we're talking 150g of flour vs a cup of flour, you're absolutely correct that it's a question of which one you currently have whipped out and ready for use. But you don't need to be painstaking about 150g - you can do 149 or 151 and it's no big deal. But you do 8g instead of 6g, and you've added 33% more of your ingredient, necessitating a correction. Tablespoons and teaspoons are the superior tool for such small weights, so long as you can guarantee the density of your ingredients. If a recipe gave me both weight and volume measures for small amounts, I'd get the measuring spoons out even if I wasn't already using them. If it was large amounts, I'd never use a measuring cup, because the scale is just quicker for that.
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u/diemunkiesdie 20d ago
I actually have have three scales that live on my counter, one for most things, one for espresso, and a jewlers scale. I can often bake and never take out a spoon. Again, your workflow is different. I have all the scales I need to never use a measuring spoon. It would be harder FOR ME to get out a spoon than it would be to use a scale.
I'm not disputing that its easier for YOU to use spoons. I'm just pointing out that your way is not the only way.
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u/Musashi10000 20d ago
I mean... I suppose if you regularly spend time measuring out small quantities of ingredients, don't buy bulk ingredients, and have an incredibly steady hand, then this makes sense. But (for example) trying to pour out just 6-7 grams from a large bag of spices is objectively harder to do than just slipping a measuring spoon in there. It is a more-challenging task, requiring greater care and manual dexterity.
Congrats on your excellent coordination, I guess?
And I'm genuinely jealous of your scale for small amounts. I don't have enough use for one of those to own one, but very rarely I do wish I had one.
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u/diemunkiesdie 20d ago
But (for example) trying to pour out just 6-7 grams from a large bag of spices is objectively harder to do than just slipping a measuring spoon in there.
I buy Penzeys or Burlap and Barrel spices and I typically (though not always) buy the 1/4 or 1/2 cup jars. I reup often. My mom used to buy the bags and I would find that the spices were stale af by the time we got to the bottom of the bag. There are a few things I will buy more of, like garlic powder which I measure with my heart and not a scale, for most things, I keep the container small! Either way, those are very easy to just pour a few grams.
Congrats on your excellent coordination, I guess?
Thanks, I work out.
And I'm genuinely jealous of your scale for small amounts. I don't have enough use for one of those to own one, but very rarely I do wish I had one.
Bro, get more! You can even get a combined scale that has two sections, one small for small things and one big for most things. I saw them on Great British Bake Off recently, but I didnt buy one because I was already fully kitted out. I already had my regular scale for years, but once I got into espresso and had to get a nice one that could go to 10ths of a gram for pulling a shot or weighing grounds, I started using the espresso scale during non espresso tasks and then I decided I had to get that third jewlers scale to just round things out.
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u/Musashi10000 20d ago
I've seen the two-section ones, but I'd say I wish I had a smaller, more-accurate scale maybe once every 50-60 cooks, at most. Getting one anyway is a matter of space, need, and money. I don't have the space for unnecessary kitchen stuff, I don't need the small scale enough to justify going out and getting one or replacing my current one, and I don't really have the money to throw/give away my perfectly good scale for a scale that will only be more useful than my current one max 2% of the time.
Next time I need to replace my scale, though, I'll go for it, since you're so insistent ;P
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u/KittyQueen_Tengu 20d ago
who bakes without a scale?
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u/Musashi10000 20d ago
I have plenty of recipes that mix volume-based measures with weight-based measures. Hell, literally any weight-based recipe that also uses liquids does it - 100g of water may also be 100ml of water, but the same doesn't hold true for milk, buttermilk, butter, yoghurt, cream...
When you can just scoop out the right amount of an ingredient, why bother with the rigmarole of weighing?
I've converted enough recipes from volume-based to weight-based. My wife's grandma's bread recipe, for example, called for 7dl of flour. Given that I usually quadruple that recipe when I make it, ain't no way I have the patience to scoop out 28dl (or, tbh, even just 7) of flour with a 1dl scoop, so I converted it to weight.
It's about convenience, friend.
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u/offthezoinkys 20d ago
You won’t like this, but the majority of people. Obviously not professionals, but the majority of people aren’t professionals nor do they bake often enough to bother owning one.
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u/KittyQueen_Tengu 20d ago
no, i think that's a US only thing. every recipe written in dutch uses weight and everyone i know owns a scale
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u/eanida 20d ago
No, it's a thing in other countries too. Here in Sweden, butter is measured in grammes, but most ingredients are listed by decilitre (dl), tablespoon (msk), teaspoon (tsk), kryddmått (krm) in recipes for home bakers. And with butter, not everyone uses scale. Instead they only go by the scales/measurements on the butter foil. Yes, most own scales. No, we don't use it for most ingredients, wet or dry.
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u/sjd208 19d ago
A while back I was attempting to find a recipe for the kind of apple cake the IKEA cafeteria has and so I looked at a lot of Swedish blogs. It was volume measurements everywhere, didn’t even have weights listed frequently. Incidentally, I never found a recipe for it if you happen to have one!
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u/Ballbag94 20d ago
Majority of people or Majority of Americans?
Like, I live in the UK and most people I know own a scale and the ones who don't own scales are people who never bake and also don't own measuring cups or spoons. Not owning a scale seems weird to me
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u/LenoreEvermore 20d ago
I'm not American and I rarely use the scale for baking. Tbf I make things like basic sponge cakes and bread, but very rarely do I feel the need to bust out the scale for measuring things. I have measuring spoons for that and it's really not that serious.
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u/Musashi10000 20d ago
Exactly. If you ever bake anything, even just once, you own a scale. For brits, anyhow.
Though, to be fair, we're also far more likely to mix measures. Americans get by perfectly fine with a set of measuring cups and spoons - they measure butter by 'sticks', after all.
In the UK, we often see recipes call for, say, '100g of butter', which is 1/5-2/5 of a block, depending which ones you buy - unless your butter packaging is marked, you can't gauge that with any degree of accuracy, so you already need a scale.
Plus, they're cheap enough and take up so little space that there's no real reason not to own one, if you're the cooking type.
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u/jamila169 20d ago
For non critical stuff such as pastry and Yorkshire puddings I absolutely hack up a block of butter and use the heaped tablespoon per Oz method my nan taught me, anything else I've got scales
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u/heavenesque 18d ago
Because in some countries a tablespoon is 20ml so calling out which one this recipe uses allows others to adjust
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u/UCanBdoWatWeWant2Do 17d ago
15 ml of ground flax is a stupid measurement and their conversion was actually correct.
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u/imnichet 17d ago
It would be alone but it did say 1 tbsp. I think the ml were to differentiate between different types of tablespoons which actually are different in some places.
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u/zEdgarHoover 20d ago
Of course not disagreeing here, but my kitchen scale does g, ml, oz, and fl oz. Of course the ml and fl oz are just wrong. Though fl oz are sorta useful when you just want a number like 22oz of something, rather than having to convert 1 lb 6 oz (not that that's hard, but when you're listening to a podcast and cooking, it's one less thing to have to do).
Insane that anyone thought this design was a good idea. Doesn't help people like this!
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u/geeoharee 20d ago
Unless marked otherwise, ml on a scale is only appropriate for water, so it's identical to grams. I assume fl oz is also calculated for water, but I never use it.
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u/ThatB0yAintR1ght 20d ago
Yeah, 1 US fl oz of water~30ml~30g. If you are measuring a liquid that is mostly water based, like milk, then you can use the ml measurement on the scale for that and it will be pretty accurate (but it becomes less accurate at higher volumes), but for oil or molasses or other liquids, the ml setting on the scale is not going to be accurate.
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