Enjoy, and Happy Birthday.

I use mine for measuring ingredients when I bake, it's so much more accurate than using "cup" or parts of a cup. Everything turns out better when I weigh them, especially the flour.

Aftr the newness wears off you'll stop weighing things like 3/4 pound of chicken. ;-) But I definitely prefer recipes that include weights, and even for those that don't I like using it for measuring messy things like peanut butter, honey, etc.

Did it come with an equivents chart? If not, that might be something you want to put together or download.

And yes, I can appreciate being excited over a scale. I was excited when I got one for Christmas, and then another one a few Christmases later after I broke my first.

I'm confused.

momj47, If something calls for a cup of flour you use the weight equivalent ?

foodonastump, for equivalents do you mean cups to lbs? or lbs to grams? No chart included but it is digital so you can pick lbs or grams.

Maybe after using the scale for a while I will be able to estimate better. Right now I can't imagine what 3/4 of a lb of chicken will look like. I'm just never good at estimating weight, amounts or distances. If a recipe calls for 4 lbs of chicken I usually take 4 (skinless, boneless breast halves) I have no idea how close I am!!!

Cups to grams or ounces. I have a useful chart for common ingredients that came with my scale. I'd be happy to scan a copy for you; email me through GW if interested. I also might be a bit slow in responding as my kitchen is in boxes so it might take a little while to find!

As for flour, that's one of the trickier ingredients because everyone seems to have their own significantly different ideas of what a cup weighs. On the higher end of the spectrum is Cooks Illustrated at 5 ounces, but at least I know how much they want.

Someone here, probably Ann_T, got me measuring a few years ago, and it makes a difference, especially with flours and sugars.

This little paragraph explains it pretty well A few cookbooks in my collection give ingredient quantities in both volume and weight, but I didnâÂÂt pay much attention until I made the Thick & Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies from Baking Illustrated. Curious as to how much of a difference there could actually be between scooping ingredients into measuring cups and weighing them, I conducted an experiment. I measured flour into a cup the way I normally would and then put that scoop on the kitchen scale. Amazingly, there was almost an entire ounce of difference. The scooped flour measured into the cup was almost a full ounce heavier than the recipe stated a cup of all-purpose flour should be. Yikes! That could be a recipe (no pun intended) for disaster. At that point I decided to start weight everything. from Browneyedbaker

Here is a link that might be useful: Master weight chart

Some other ways I use my bevy of kitchen scales.

1. Weigh the batter in your pans for layer cakes, multiple loaves of quick breads, etc., so you have an equal amount in each pan and they bake evenly.

2. Scale (weigh) dough for hot dog buns, hamburger buns, hot rolls, etc., so they are the same size and bake in approximately the same amount of time. It also helps with portion control.

3. As already mentioned, there are conflicting "standards" for the weight of a cup of flour. When it comes to scaling flour for yeast bread it's just a good (or bad) guess. You need to go by the "feel" of the dough, not exact measurements whether the flour is cupped or scaled.

4. Scale yeast bread dough if your recipe makes more than one loaf so the loaves are the same size and bake evenly. Scaling the dough is also needed to choose the correct pan size:

Jumbo - 10 x 4-1/2" - 4-5 c. flour - 2# plus dough weight
Quick Bread - 9 x 5" - 4 c. flour - 2#
Standard - 8-1/2 x 4-1/2 - 3 c. flour - 1-1/2 #
Medium - 7-1/2 x 3-1/2 - 2-1/2 c. flour - 1#
Small - 5-3/4 x 3-3/4" - 1-1/2 c. flour - 8 oz.
Miniature - 4-1/2 x 2-1/2- 3/4 c. flour - 6 oz.

-Grainlady

Thank you all for the information.

FOAS I will email you. No hurry in responding.

momj47, I need to pay more attention to recipes. I always ignored weight references since I didn't have a scale. I will check out those links.

Grainlady, you hit upon an issue. When recipes say to put even amount in different pans etc. I am never sure. Great idea to use the scale.

Well I just measured out the 3/4 lb of chicken. It was a lot more chicken then I would have expected.

LOL I was going to say, "I have a feeling you'll be eating more chicken!"

One of the coolest hints received when I started using my scale was to use the "tare" command.
For instance, put a bowl on the scale and press tare; add 7 grams of salt, press tare (which returns the weight to zero); add 454 grams of flour, press tare; add 65 grams of sugar, press tare; and so on without ever bothering to empty the bowl!!

This method is really simple and a significant time saver when you are measuring or weighing several dry ingredients that will be combined immediately anyway.

It is especially good to weigh flour. You can be consistent and don't have to worry about not compressing it and getting to much into your cup measure.

Have fun with your scale. I still smile when I get mine out which I always do when I make bread or any other baked goods.

I THINK I got the hint about using the tare button (which everyone else probably already knew!! from the Smitten Kitchen website, which is a fun read. I linked it below.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Smitten Kitchen

DH (an engineer) was very excited to show me the tare feature. Glad to know it is actually useful!

I never thought i needed or wanted one but modifying recipes and keeping track now it will get some use. Just bought the Ozeri from Amazon. I've been making my own spice mixes and mustards and need to be more precise with successes. No more dash of this and that.
Might be holiday gifts so i want to be exact.
I'm sure it will improve baking.

I love my scale, although after I got my scale, I noticed just how many recipes don't include weights, and some that only include ounces or pounds, not grams. My scale does ounces in metrics, such as 1.2, 1.3, etc, so weighing out 1 1/4 ounce of something is frustrating. With grams its easier for this anal person to get exact weights. It's also easier to divide portions.

The tare feature is one of the things I told Santa I wanted with the scale he was planning to give me for Christmas that year.

I hadn't thought about using it for cake batter. Just the other day I was making a chocolate marble cheesecake for my son's birthday. It said to reserve 1/3 of the batter to mix with the chocolate. I've never figured out how to decide how much is 1/3 of the batter, so I've just guessed. From not on I'll weigh it out.

Sally

Enjoy your gift! I couldn't live without my kitchen scales. Use them all the time.

I used it again today to make home made hamburger rolls. Tried to get each ball at 3 oz. It worked out great except it appears I killed the yeast with too hot of water. Have to try again!

You will use it more than you ever expected! Can't imagine a kitchen without a scale.