this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
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Please, baking is such a pain in the ass because measurements are never consistent
And everything is measured by volume. Just tell me the amount of salt I need in grams and I don't have to worry about if it's kosher or not.
You technically only need kosher salt if the recipe involves some of kind of fermentation or yeast rise, because the iodine in non-kosher salt will kill the yeast before it can rise.
But every recipe from the US uses kosher salt, which means their measurements don't match for other salts, but if they gave the weight it wouldn't be an issue. 5g of salt is 5g of salt no matter the size of the crystals, but one teaspoon can be totally different.
That’s why making a preferment like poolish is a superior method for any bread recipe. You only add salt once the poolish has finished the leavening process.
inconsistent flour hydration and packing density has entered the chat
Sure it is
You can teaspoon the shit out of everything. 3tsp to a table. 5ml to 15ml. Cut recipes by turning everything into a tablespoon. Need to make 1/2 of something that is already 1/4 cup? That's 16 tbsp to a cup, so you were at 4, now half a 1/4 cup is simply 2 tbsp
For dry shit, get a gram scale and welcome to consistency city
I didn't know the conversion for tbsp to cups, that's super helpful!
Google assistant has gotten worse and worse but "Hey Google, how many tablespoons are in x" is pretty helpful
Or use DuckDuckGo
Or use the terminal app
qalc, which converts and calculates with everything!Does that plug into assistant speakers?
I'm not a massive fan of it but hands free cooking questions are nice. I use DDG for my browser search
I'm sure some open hardware hacker could get DuckDuckGo or
qalcto work through their home-soldered voice-controlled assistant.But other than that, no. For what it's worth, I spend 2 to 3 seconds for each conversion through the terminal when preparing a recipe, or about 15 seconds unlocking my phone and looking it up in DDG on the spot
Right? Cooking is the single area where the American system makes sense. Much more intuitive and you don't need a kitchen scale.
Using volume is imprecise no matter what units you're using. Not a big deal for cooking, but for baking, you definitely should use a scale.
Cooking is an art. Baking is a science
I was with someone who eyeballed it. Worked out for a skillet. Then she tried to make bread one night. I warned her but it did not go well