by Texas Homesteader ~
I’ve found an easier way to measure ingredients for recipes I use often. I weigh them instead of using measuring cups.
It’s faster than digging out measuring cups and there’s less cleanup too. Just place your bowl on the scale, tare the weight to zero and add ingredients. Brilliant!
What Ingredients Are More Easily Measured By Weight?
Small measuring-spoon amounts of dry seasoning ingredients are probably so lightweight that it may not help to use the weighing shortcut.
But any ingredient that uses a measuring cup can often be more easily weighed.
Wet or sticky ingredients such as bacon grease & honey are always helpful to measure by weight no matter the quantity.
For me the ingredients most often weighed in my Homestead Kitchen are:
Flour
Sugar
Peanut Butter
Honey
Oil
Applesauce
There are no measuring cups to dirty up and no measuring spoons with sticky ingredients to clean.
Work smarter, not harder…
How To Find Recipe Ingredient Weights:
To find out what each of your recipe ingredients weighs, first measure ingredients using a measuring cup.
Then put an empty container on your digital scale, tare the weight to ‘ZERO’ to remove the weight of the container. Pour your measured ingredient into the empty container and read what it weighs. Then document the weight on your recipe card.
Repeat until you get all your ingredients weighed and documented. From now on your recipe will go lightening fast!
How To Properly Measure Flour
One of the most common ways bakers end up being disappointed in the flavor & texture of their freshly baked homemade bread is to measure the flour improperly.
To measure flour properly for bread you need to spoon the flour into the measuring cup, then scrape the excess away with the flat edge of a butter knife.
If you just scoop the flour out using the measuring cup instead the flour will be compacted. That means you’ll end up with way too much flour, resulting in a dense, heavy loaf of bread that won’t rise correctly.
NOTE: The weight of your flour could vary based on type of flour and even the humidity in your area. Here’s a link from King Arthur Flour that gives estimated weights of a cup of flour.
What Containers To Use For Homemade Bread Recipe Ingredients?
I make homemade bread for RancherMan a couple of time each week. So this ingredient-weighing shortcut comes in most handy for that.
Enter the next super-simple Texas Homesteader bread-baking shortcut:
I make several containers of pre-mixed dry ingredients for my homemade bread recipe at one time.
You can use zippered bags, jars or any covered container you want. Just make sure to label the ingredients.
Or you can use jars instead to hold your dry ingredients. I discovered that the wider shoulders on a wide mouth quart jar gives me just a little more room than a regular-mouth jar does.
The dry ingredients for a 2-lb loaf fit in a wide-mouth quart jar beautifully!
I use *Wide-Mouth Food-Safe Jar Storage Lids to keep everything neat and tidy. I sure don’t want to have to fiddle with a two-part lid every time I bake bread.
Shortcuts, my friends. SHORTCUTS!
Shortcut For Fastest Bread-Baking Day EVER!
So on bread-baking day I just bring out my bread machine’s pan and add in (by weight) the wet ingredients.
Then I top with my jar of pre-measured dry ingredients, add yeast and place the pan into the bread machine.
Now I simply push a button & walk away!
~TxH~
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Other Favorite Breads
Sandwich Bread Recipes
No-Knead Bread Recipes
Flavored Bread Recipes
Recipes For Buns
Biscuit Recipes
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- Mix-n-Bake Cheddar Biscuits
- Snappy Jalapeno/Cheese Biscuits
Cornbread Recipes
Tortilla Recipes
Sweet Breads / Desserts
- Leftover Biscuit Dough Cinnamon Rolls!
- Cantaloupe Bread w/Pecan Praline Glaze
- Chunky Apple Bread With Honey Glaze
- Sweet Pumpkin Bread
Bread Tips
- Making Pre-Mix Bread Ingredient Packets
- Making My Own Oat Flour For CHEAP
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- Our Favorite Bread Recipes, All In One Post
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I would have expected nothing else from you and certainly didn’t mean to impugn your commitment to walking softly on this earth. We don’t have Aldi where we shop/live and we do a lot of out shopping at a big store – Winco. I have to clamp my hand over my mouth when I see folks use a new bag off the store dispensers for things like a single avocado or a couple of oranges. I did mention to a young man in the grocery line as we were both bagging our things – that the brown bags I’m using were probably older than he. Of course he looked at me like I was a crazy old dingbat lady who might even be dangerous if she weren’t so short.
OMGoodness Candace, you paint quite the picture. Thanks for the chuckle this morning. 🙂 I love Winco. There’s not one close to us but when our errands run us that direction I make a list and make sure to stop in. It’s the closest thing we have to an actual bulk store anywhere within 60 miles. I’m currently trying to find the big gallon-sized mustard since I hate those tiny plastic squeezy bottles. At least a gallon size uses less plastic. I used to be able to find it in WalMart but no luck. Costco sold larger squeeze bottles shrink-wrapped together (certainly not gonna help my plastic-reduction requirement) So I checked Sam’s and didn’t find it there either. So instead I’ll pick up dry mustard or mustard seed at the bulk bins in Winco next time we’re out that way & attempt to make mustard myself. It looks like it’s easy to do, we’ll see! ~TxH~
Question – Do you reuse those plastic bags? As I work to cut down on the amount of plastic I add to the horrendous plastic crisis in the world both on land and, maybe worse, at sea – I attempt to reuse plastic bags – many times. There is almost NO SUCH THING as a once used plastic bag in our lives. Nor do I buy anything in plastic that can’t be recycled. It took a bit of practice to get into the habit of rinsing bags and drying them but I manage to do it. I’m using brown paper grocery bags – saved, double and triple bagged and now with taped up corners – brown paper bags that have been with me for many years. In the kitchen for the (tiny) little trash can I use the cracker box liners or cereal box liners or bread wrappers.
Something I recently read – a plastic bottle can only be turned into another plastic bottle once (unlike paper or metal that can be turned into more paper and metal numerous times) and then it has to be turned into something else. I am grateful that there are many people and some municipalities (if you can trust what they say) who attempt to curb the plastic use in their worlds.
Of course I reuse the plastic bags Candace. In this case probably repeatedly every week or so for several years. That’s why I wrote the ingredients in permanent marker on the front. If I had jars big enough the mix would probably be in those instead, but #UseWhatchaGot is my motto. Although I think plastic has its place, I typically avoid it as much as possible. Soft plastics aren’t recycled where I live so I shun them as much as possible. Now I’m making my own bread & tortillas for RancherMan to further cut down on plastic-lined purchases. I typically buy food in bulk whenever possible, and use my fabric produce bags for bulk popcorn, etc. Anything entombed in plastic is sidestepped. (I love Aldi but what in the world is their love of plastic in their produce section??) But as I said, plastic does have its place. Most plastic freezer bags are washed & reused and I have a whole box of various sizes of reused ziplocks in my cabinet. I shoot for moderation in all things. But with plastic – I push back pretty hard. LOL ~TxH~