2019-10-11 So, how much DOES a cup of flour weigh, part 8,135

It's been a while since I updated this blog or sent out a Mike's (more or less) Weekly Baking Tips. I've been busy. My mom had some eye surgery and needed lots of hand holding and chauffeuring around. (She's fine now.) And the conversion to the new web site has been an ongoing effort. How much of an effort? We're not quite done and there are 246 pages, and over 1,300 pictures. A lot of text had to be touched up, as did some pictures.We're hoping that we'll go live this weekend. We won't have all the blog entries live on day 1, we'll be adding them over the weeks to come. There will be other changes too. MailChimp has been very, very good to us. However, to move to the next level we'll need to spend more to send out a free newsletter than we really want to. So, we're moving to a different mailing list package that will let us do things we can't do now, such as send out cookbook updates easily. With luck, the next email will be from the new list service.

We've updated our web site before and no matter how hard we try, there are little gotchas. Last time we had a contest wherein we rewarded the people who found the most errors on our site. It REALLY helped us get our house in order. Se we're doing it again. We're still working out what the prizes will be, but I'd guess our cookbooks will be involved. We're looking at having four 1 week contests with weekly prizes. With a grand prize of a free class (sorry, transportation and lodging are not included) for the person who reports the most errors.

We're looking for dead links, typos, and recipe issues (such as, "the recipe ingredients calls for oats, but you never use the oats") and other mechanical errors. We are interested if you think our recipes are wrong (use too much/little starter, too much/little salt, too much/little herbs), but those aren't the errors we're hunting for this time around.

Full details will be on the new page.

But what about the cup thing?

One of the most common questions we get is, "how much does a cup of flour weigh?" And we've attacked that question endlessly. Most flour sacks in the USA tell you that a quarter cup of flour is a serving and that should weigh 30 grams. Which means that a cup should weigh 120 grams.Only, the closest I can consistently get is 130 grams after I sift the flour. Until today.

I was milling flour to prepare for tomorrow's home ground whole grain bread class. And as I was scooping the flour from the bowl below the MockMill 100 I was astounded at how light the flour was. It just felt weightless!Of course, I had to weigh the flour. I spooned some into a measuring cup, scraped off the excess and weighed it. 120 grams! The first time I've hit that mark! WOW! I was amazed and surprised!

Class updates - we have a class tomorrow (if you haven't signed up, it's too late!) and a BagelMania class in November. Between now and then we'll update our calendar with 2020 classes. BagelMania is a fun class where we make New York style bagels and have a bagel party with schmears we make in class. More at BakeWithMike.

Until next time, may your dough always rise, no matter how you milled the flour!
-Mike