April 24, 2016 - 10:36pm
One Cup of Flour
When baking, I often hear it is more accurate to measure ingredients by weight rather than to measure by volume. This really makes sense, especially for flour. Depending on how it’s measured –scooped and leveled, spooned and leveled, not leveled at all, packed or loose- and depending on the brand –Gold Medal vs King Arthur vs White Lily vs some other brand- you can get wildly different results. However, nearly every recipe published in the USA has flour by the cup rather than by grams. It seems like the latter would be far more consistent.
My question, then, is this: What is the weight, in grams, of one properly measured cup of all purpose flour?
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This question has no simple answer. It depends on the how the author of the recipe measures the flour. Ideally, the author should specify which of the methods that you gave above he or she used. However, King Arthur, on this page
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/learn/ingredient-weight-chart.html
states that one cup of AP flour weighs 129 grams. Other variables include the age of the flour, how it was stored and the humidity of your environment.
Hope that helps.
What you should do is measure the flour the way the author of the book recommends and then weigh it.
For me, using the spoon and sweep method with King Arthur's AP flour, I get 130g. Once you see what sort of dough that produces, you can modify the flour accordingly.
This is probably the most accurate measure for you. As Petek points out there are lots of variables in play here. I agree with tgrayson here in that you should measure out a cup of flour the way the author recommends (or even just the way you usually do it), and weigh it. And I think I would do this 3-5 times and take an average just to make sure you're reasonably accurate. Your method; your kitchen. That's what 1 cup of flour weighs for you.
For me, in my kitchen in Nebraska, 1 cup of store brand AP flour from my local grocer usually runs about 138-140g. (FWIW, it's closer to 132-135g in my kitchen in Arizona using a different brand of flour.)
I have been able to find the weight of various ingredients from these two sites:
I hope this helps. I have been using 125 grams as the weight for 1 cup.
Dwayne
I've been on TFL a few year now and no other topic (almost) has spawned so many passionate agreements and disagreements. Almost as many on "the right way" to maintain a sourdough starter.
For my .02 cents, I believe GAPOMA is absolutely correct. My daughter and I once did a side-by-side comparison with the same canister of flour, identical measuring cups, and a good scale. We stirred the flour in the canister before we started as it had been sitting a while. Then she would draw 1 cup (scoop and sweep), weigh and write it down. Then I drew my cup (scoop and sweep) and noted the weight. We did this about 5 times each, dumped it back in the canister and did it again. Then we averaged the weights for each person. A very interesting experiment. We were both amazed at how much difference there could be from cup to cup by the same person and also how much difference there was on the average of my cups to hers. She runs light (about 135g) and I run heavy (about 144g). So in my opinion, GAPOMA has it exactly correct. This is where the bakers touch comes in. When starting with a new recipe written in weights, it is still not guaranteed to have a perfect outcome. There still has to be a "feel" for the process. And the tables out there of how much AP flour weighs per cup is a ballpark figure only.
I think we should go back to "handfuls" , "pinches" and "palm pinches". It gets people talking. The main thing is to bake deliciously with love!
Europeans scratch their heads or roll their eyes, when they read US-recipes. Every German housewife has a scale, and every recipe is measured in grams. (Though we use spoonfuls, too, those are just spoons from your drawer, eyeballed, with no claim to accuracy).
I measured, then weighed a cup of every flour I use, and taped a list with the results at my baking station. My AP flour weight is 130 g for a cup. But when I compare those results with other lists (in baking books, the internet, or measurement apps, they results can vary by as much as 30 g!
Karin
I always go with 140g per cup of flour.
Thanks for all the input. I've checked many baking websites and flour companies. I've seen anywhere from 120 to 130 grams per cup.
When a recipe (we are talking about bread baking here, so that's what I am referring to) only provides volume based measurements, I usually don't even bother to try to convert it. There are too many variables., and it's not worth the trouble. I just kerp on looking for one that uses preferably grams.
You can use 130g/cup for AP flour,b(assuming the tecipe's author used the same technique to al end up at about that weight) but what about whole grain rye flour? All bets are off, and that's why a weight is not jist important, but mandatory for repeatable results.
Look at the side of bag of flour you purchased and look to see what it says 1/3 or 1/4 cup of flour weighs. Then multiply by 3 or 4 and you know what a cup of that flour is supposed to weigh.
Not useful at all if they didn't measure the flour the same way the particular recipe did.
But, if you don't know how the particular recipe did it, then this is the best way to know what a cup of flour is supposed to weigh.
I'm with the other posters here that find another recipe. If baking book uses cups for a recipe, I don't qualify it as a serious baking book, and I have purged all specifically baking books from my library that use cups. Cookbooks that happen to have baking recipes in them are saved, but I don't trust their recipe as a valid source, finding another version elsewhere.
Most bags of flour show 30 or 31 grams per quarter cup. That's what normally obtains when you sift flour into the measuring cup and level off. It's pretty accurate.
As has been noted, dragging the cup through the flour will not give consistent results. I don't think any reputable book would recommend that technique.
If you don't want to take the time to sift into a measuring cup, here's a faster way to get consistent results: Stir or fluff the flour in the bag with a spoon. Using a spoon, fill the cup with flour. Gently tap the cup once with the spoon. Level off. I nearly always get about 126 grams with this method.
I use a scale because of its speed, not because of its greater accuracy.
The problem with a 'cup of flour' is not only in flour that differs in its heaviness/composition, or in person, who measures it (different methods of scooping, spooning, sifting into the cup, being light handed or heavy handed).
The measuring cups differ in volume from 227ml (8 imperial fluid oz) to 237ml (8 US fluid oz) to 284ml (imperial cup, 10 imperial fluid oz). The regular teacups are actual 'imperial' cups in volume, so I suppose that is what was used in the 20th century and before. Modern measuring cups come either in 240ml (US legal cup) or, more commonly, in 250 ml volume (metric cup).
That might complicate things significantly, if the reader doesn't know how roomy is the cup and what is the method of measuring, how to fill it with flour. The moisture and protein content of flour also will affect its weight. Moist flour is heavy, dry flour is not. High protein flour is heavy, low protein flour is not.
That said, measuring by volume is pretty much consistent and gives good results if a person uses the same cup, same kind of flour and the same method every time. I tested it and it is very consistent if one spoons and sweeps, plus or minus 1 gram difference for white flour (129-133g range per 250ml cup) and +2 grams difference for whole grain flour (120-126g per 250ml cup)!
So flour per cup is not that much of an issue. Modern yeast is. It is nearly always instant these days and must be measured with high precision, +0.1g, especially for the bread machine. That cannot be achieved by teaspoons.