Warning: tried that viral 'no knead' bread recipe everyone swore by...

My buddy kept pushing this recipe from some food blog saying it was foolproof. Three tries later I had hockey pucks. Fourth time I used my cheap kitchen scale instead of measuring cups and suddenly it worked. Turns out the recipe was fine I just can't eyeball flour. Still annoyed I wasted 2 bags of flour though. Anyone else have a hyped up baking trick that took way too many tries to actually work?

3 comments

3 Comments

michael_williams2d ago

Ha! That scale thing is a game changer for sure. @danielowens I actually weigh my liquids too now after a pancake disaster where I used too much milk and ended up with what looked like flat waffle batter. Its not as big a deal as flour but water density changes with temperature so if your recipe expects cold water and you use warm youre just guessing. The real joke is I got so obsessed with precision that I started weighing my eggs. My wife caught me and laughed her ass off but hey at least my cookies come out the same size now.

juliaa652d ago

The kitchen scale is the real secret weapon nobody talks about. I had the same exact thing happen with a sourdough starter recipe where everyone was like just trust the feel and I ended up with cement loaves for two weeks straight. Once I started weighing everything out it was like night and day difference. Even with cookies and cakes I use the scale now because measuring cups just compress flour differently every single time. The hype around that recipe probably works fine for people who have been baking for years but for normal folks like us the scale is the only way to get consistent results without wasting ingredients.

danielowens2d ago

Wait so @juliaa65 do you still measure liquids by volume or do you weigh those too? I've been weighing flour and sugar for a while now but I'm still using measuring cups for water and milk and wondering if that's actually causing problems.