Grams versus Ounces
The other day I answered a reader's question about tomato soup baked with pastry on top. Chef Jenni uses grams rather than ounces in the recipe, and I wondered why. She is a professional baker who attended Orlando Culinary Academy's Le Cordon Bleu cooking program, so why was she using the metric system to measure ingredients? So I asked her if she always used this system and, if so, why. Here is how she replied,
"No, I don't always work in the metric system, although it is the most exacting measuring system around as far as baking is concerned. I convert standard recipes as much as possible. This is easy with our Detecto Scale. You can change the unit from grams to ounces to pounds, ounces to pounds and 1/10ths of pounds. Very convenient."
One ounce equals roughly 28 grams. I think it's much more accurate to call for 14 grams of an ingredient than ½ ounce, mainly because your margin for error is greater--your scale might only measure ounces to the nearest ¼ ounce, leaving about a + or - 3.5 grams error in measuring.
It's mainly a personal preference, but it does help with standardization and consistency in the final product. I prefer weights (either metric or standard) over cups any day.
In culinary school, we always weighed, mainly using a balance scale and then getting digital scales later in the program. Most of the recipes were written in pounds and ounces. The metric conversions were woefully inaccurate, and when I was there, they were talking about updating all the metric measurements.
We also learned that there are three liquids you can measure or weigh (a pint is a pound the world around) accurately: water, whole milk and whole eggs. Depending on the density, most other liquids will vary by a few grams or fractions of ounces either side of that pint=pound standard."
Cooking Conversions
By the way, I have a page on my website called Cooking Conversions with two easy-to-use converters. You can change ounces to cups, teaspoons to tablespoons, and more with the first and just about any conversion with the second. Give it a try.
Alicia
great tips. I enjoyed reading this
rwb
Sorry, but a pint is a pound and a quarter [20 ounces] the world over. Perhaps that Senior Moment apron is the appropriate item to follow that gaffe? 😉
The Reluctant Gourmet
Hi RWB, I should have said an “American pint” is a pound around the world but if you are in the British empire and talking about an “Imperial pint”, you are correct. It takes 20 fluid ounces to make an Imperial pint thus making an an “Imperial gallon” 25% bigger than an “American gallon”.