Mike Avery wrote:

> I am curious.... if you use cups, and I am sure most of the Americans
> here do, how do you fill your cups? Do you sift, spoon and level? Do
> you scoop?

Well, I use both scales and volume measurements and sometimes not much
of either. Depends.

I was at a King Arthur bread class some time ago where before the class
there was a bowl of flour on a display table with an invitation to fill
a cup with flour and weigh the results.

Somebody tallyed the results and presented a chart of the weights. The
variance was hard to believe. People had filled a cup with 4.5 Oz to
six Oz of flour.

We were invited to return to the flour and cup display and try again
with more that one try each to see how difficult it is to measure a cup
of flour with a consistent weight. The suggested method was to fluff
the flour with a spoon and lightly spoon into the cup and then level
with the handle of the spoon. You are good if you can keep within a
half ounce.

It takes practice and close attention to measure a consistent weight of
flour with a volume measure. Of course, often it is not necessary. On
the other hand, if you are baking for sale, testing a new recipe that
has weight measurements, or trying to fix a problem, you would be silly
not to use a scale.

Last I knew, the KA Flour folks are saying a cup should weigh 4.5 Oz.
That is up from an impossible 4 Oz that once was printed on the bag.
With great care, I can get to 4.6 Oz. It is very easy to scoop a lot
more into a cup.

Are there enough people left who sift flour to get up a game of bridge?

Regards,

Charles