[Sca-cooks] measuring flour and pound equivalents

[terry l. ridder]

hello;

it seems nearly every year around the holiday season
there are questions concerning how to measure flour.
there are those who just push the measuring cup into
the canister and pack the flour into the cup; than
there are those who spoon the flour out of the canister
and gently into the measuring cup and level the measuring
cup off with a straight edge. i am the spoon the flour
into the measuring cup type of baker.

when baking cookies one can get away with more or less flour,
when it comes to yeast bakegoods, more or less flour leads
to disasters.

the second part to the above is there is in many cookbooks
the pound equivalents table. i even have two kitchen
magnets with the pound equivalents table on them. all these
tables have that 4 cups of flour is equivalent to 1 pound.

this weekend has been a christmas cookie and treat baking
weekend with my adult children. the general question asked
is;

how do i know which way the writer of the recipe measured
the flour?

my response is normally i assume spoon and level until proven
otherwise.

then the questions start about do all flours weigh the same.
do 4 cups of gramdma best flour from aldi (http://www.aldi.com)
weigh the same as 4 cups of king arthur's unbleached all-purpose
flour? how much does 4 cups of whole wheat flour weigh? how much
does 4 cups of rye flour weigh?

lastly, the question comes. is there really a difference between
grandma best flour from aldi and king arthur's unbleached all-purpose
flour?

my middle daughter, uses king arthur's flour, i am the use whichever
flour is the less expensive or on sale.

if recipes were by weight there would be no issue. ;-)

how do members of the list intrepret flour measure in recipes they read?

-- 
terry l. ridder ><>