Frederica,
Weight v cups is a contentious issue and I seldom have the time (or, indeed
the energy <g>) to engage in the wrangles that always seem to ensue
whenever weighing flour is the topic under discussion. However, the issue
is not about weight, as such.
What usually becomes lost in the wrangles is something Steven mentioned in
his reply. It is NOT absolute accuracy that is the decisive advantage of
weighing over volume but CONSISTENCY. My scales (old fashioned beam balance
and weights) weigh about 2% heavy but it doesn't matter because they are
ALWAYS 2% heavy. The ratios of ingredient, the critical factor in bread
formulae are not changed by consistent weight inaccuracies.
When I have a new recipe to attempt, specified in cups, I just use 150 gm
per cup as a start point and adjust the flour and liquid to give me the
texture the recipe describes. Then I have a reference point BUT, flour of
the same brand and type can vary from batch to batch so much that any
recipe that has quantities such as 835 grams of flour, or, even more
stupidly, 837, is attempting to impose absolute precision on a system of
variables whose potential fluctuations are an order of magnitude (at least)
greater than the recipe's implied accuracy.
Commercial bakers can adjust quantities accurately because they have MUCH
more control over the variables in the breadmaking process.
I've said this before and I will say it over and over again because it's
very important - Any recipe, in a domestic baking environment, can only be
a start point. A recipe may work "out of the box" for years and then, one
day, your millers change their gain source or harvest conditions are
unusually cold or wet or dry.......... and the recipe doesn't work anymore.
That's when you have the advantage if you've learned to make bread by
accumulating skills, techniques and widely applicable general principles
rather than blindly following recipes.
You will not obtain a sudden, dramatic increase in the quality of your
bread by using accurate weighing. Nor will weighing make up for poor
technique. You will, however, have fewer disasters<g>.
OK, I'm off my soapbox now<g>
Love
John