This really underlines the inadequacy of converting cups to weight. No offence to Floyd. I do it all the time you have to. but what is a cup of flour? What flour? You have to plumb for some figure. I get 155 in my kitchen with Bread flour. I was told it should be 120g. It is what it is, Floyd had to pick some figure so I guess he chose the figure that he got when he weighed a cup of flour. I suspect that Floyd has used 120 or 125 and rounded rather than anything else.

Jim

This is one of the biggest problelms that a 'professional' baker has in scaling their recipes. Especially when trying to convert new recipes that are in the cups/tsp. form. Add to that the fact that 1 teaspoon of Kosher salt weighs quite a bit different than 1 tsp of table salt. Enough so that, when you scale your recipe up significantly, you have a problem. The larger the scale up, the bigger the problem.

Then there is the fact that 1 cup of AP flour scooped into the measuring cup with a spoon and leveled weighs different than dipping the cup into the flour container method.  Reminds me of when I worked in the little scratch bakery back in Indiana. The Mexican baker had all the recipes in his head. He would tell me he needed 2 gallons of water, 5 ounces of this, 8 ounces of another ingredient, etc. Then he would say I need x# of scoops of flour. ARGHHHHH. He had 40 years of experience to tell him how to scoop the flour so the dough would feel right. But I was an apprentice.

There are two tools that I have found very helpful in this area of ingredient weights. It helps to have a standard to go by. One is the USDA's SR18 database of foods and nutrients. It is a free nutritional database. Here is the link:

http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/Data/SR18/dnload/sr18nld.html

Another program I found just the other day is CalorieKing Nutrition and Exercise Manager. This is a vendor program. To license it costs $45. I am not real familiar with this program yet. It seems like it will be worth the $45 for me and my wife. She is diabetic and has hypertension. It should help us eat healthier. The link for this program is:

http://www.calorieking.com/software/

An alternate site can be accessed at:

http://www.download.com/CalorieKing-Diet-Nutrition-and-Exercise-Manager/3000-2129_4-10256565.html

This Recipe convertor is a handy tool. Thanks Floyd. I have an Excel spreadsheet that has all my bread recipes in it. All I have to do is tell it how many of each type of bread I need and it automatically scales my formulas for me. I might be able to make a single sheet file and upload it if anyone is interested. I can't let my full updated spreadsheet out. It is linked to several different files that tell me how much each loaf of bread costs me. Sorry.

At least I have the recipes and the costing software ready for my bakery. HEHE

--Gordon--

It has been so long since I worked on this I had to look at my code to figure out what I was doing. I estimated that a cup of flour is 50% of the density of water. Where did I get that figure from? I have no recollection...