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« Red Velvet Cake | Main | Travelling »

Sunday's Daily News Feature

PAGE 32 IN THE NOW SECTION

This is a link to the article where I give tips (and give a recipe for) buttercream icing (PDF, 1 MB)

Comments

i'm delighted to hear this. please first do a search on this blog as i've talked about the much more affordable my weigh scale. also i'm on vacation right now so don't have easy access to the blog. after you review what i've already written i'll be happy to answer any questions.

Rose,
I just got a copy of "The Cake Bible" and have really enjoyed looking through the wonderful cake recipes. I think I would like to follow your carefully calculated weights by using a scale to weigh all volumes and dry weights as indicated in your recipes. Would you still highly recommend the Mettler Scale as your FIRST choice for both dry and wet weights?? Is there a model number you might recommend to me and best place to by it??
Would appreciate any help you might be able to pass on...THANKS!!

Debbie Bartholomew

Rose,
I just got a copy of "The Cake Bible" and have really enjoyed looking through the wonderful cake recipes. I think I would like to follow your carefully calculated weights by using a scale to weigh all volumes and dry weights as indicated in your recipes. Would you still highly recommend the Mettler Scale as your FIRST choice for both dry and wet weights?? Is there a model number you might recommend to me and best place to by it??
Would appreciate any help you might be able to pass on...THANKS!!

Debbie Bartholomew

jennifer this is an excellent question. yes--dry and liquid measure are indeed quite significantly different. liquid measures can be identified by their spout. dry measures have an unbroken rim so that you can level off the ingredients.

the sad and dirty secret is that many manufacturers make liquid measures that are far from accurate. i can tell you that glass one made by anchor hocking are unusually acurate and that soon the "pourfect" beaker will be on the market and i'll be writing up the results from my testing soon. it has a spout that pours perfectly with dripping and is spot on accurate as well. it's plastic so can't be used to heat liquids in the microwave.
the real answer is to weigh the ingredients! but if you prefer volume, you'll be fine as long as you use accurate volume measures!

I found this page while doing a web search...maybe you can help me? I wanted to know: are wet and dry measuring cups the same? If I measure 1 cup with my little set of orange Tupperware stacking cups, is that the same as if I measure 1 cup with my liquid measuring cup? I have always kinda wondered this, but I always wonder it at a bad time to compare the two, like when one is dirty so I am using the other to avoid having to wash. :p Maybe my answer is to be less lazy!

o.k. i checked out anchor hocking and they're spot on! also at the chicago housewares show was a new beaker that will go under the title the pourfect beaker and it promises to be the best yet and even boasts a dripless spout! stay tuned...

thanks for letting me know. I'll have to check them out before putting them in my next book!

Ah...the reason I could not find Oven Basics is because they were either bought out by, or the brand was subsumed by Anchor Hocking. I just hope that they remain highly accurate.

no--by definition it is 238 grams which is 8.4 ounces. but americans usually round it off at 8 ounces. the metric system is far more precise and if you're going to weigh on a digital scale, might as well have the accurate values. check the dictionary--that's where i got my definition.
the metric system of volume measure is based on water so 1 cup, 238 grams is also 238 mll.

1 cup is 8.4 ounces? Isn't 1 cup supposed to be 8 ounces of water by definition?

yes--it is thoroughly exasperating that no two sets of measuring devices measure the same. the only way to check liquid measures is to weigh the water and different levels. 1 cup is 236 grams or 8.4 ounces. even if it's accurate at 1 cup level it may not be at for example 3/4 cup. the ones i have found to be the most accurate are called oven basics.
as for solid measuring cups and spoons, tupperware brand is one that is consistently reliable.

Dear Rose,

I have several of your cookbooks and love them all. I know you are interested in measuring accuracy and I'd like to find out if you know of really accurate wet or dry measuring cups and spoons. I know you recommend a particular brand of liquid measure (forget what it is at the moment; I have a 2-quart version) but I can't seem to find them anywhere any more. I try to weigh instead of measure when I can, but that's not always possible.

I have a set (and they were not cheap!) of measuring spoons that are so inaccurate as to be useless.

I discovered this when I needed to put a tablespoon of medicine in a glass of water for a number of doses throughout the day, and by the end of the day, the medicine would be gone. Well, guess what, by the end of the day, about 1/3 of the medicine was still left in the bottle, despite my following the directions to the letter, and measuring extremely carefully. I later bought another set of measuring spoons and discovered a BIG difference between the tablespoon measure of the new spoon and the old one. So big, in fact that according to the new spoons, the old tablespoon was only TWO teaspoons worth, instead of three.

So I would love to know where to buy really accurate spoons, cups and liquid measure, and how to tell if the ones I have are worth keeping.

Thanks for any advice.

Hello! I'm wondering when it is safe to leave nuts out of recipes, and when they should not be left out due to the effect omission would have on the final product? I have many family members with nut allergies of all sorts.
Thanks!-Beth

different baked and unbaked items require different degrees of humidity. some refrigerators are touted for having high humidty and some for low and others, such as the sub zero, have adjustments on the drawers to control the amount of humidity in these separate compartments. there's also a lot you can do to maintain humidity when it's desirable as for bread dough, by storing it in airtight freezer weight plastic bags. you can also call the manufacturer of the refrigerator you have or plan to purchase and ask for their specs!

no more rye flour should be added. (the mistake was that the rye flour on the chart was moved to the beginning of the recipe and not deleted from the chart). if you needed to add more flour then i suspect you were measuring and not weighing bc if you weigh the flour and the water the consistency is just right. bottom line--you did the right thing adding flour as needed especially since you arrived at the same weight.that means the balance of salt and yeast was correct too! hope you liked my fav. rye! and thanks for the kind words about the book.

I am baking Levy's Real Jewish Rye Bread, p.324 of the Bread Bible. I think there is an error in the recipe. On p. 326 the rye flour has been omitted in the list of ingredients under Flour Mixture. But it is mentioned in 2> Combine the ingredients... Without it the dough is very wet. I had to add a fairly large amount of flour to have the right consistency. Unfortunately I did not measure it, but with it the total weight of the loaf closely matches the weight mentioned on p.324.
Please tell me if I am correct. Love your book!

Hi Rose and thanks for all that you do. I've learned so much from you. In the Cake Bible, you mention that low humidity in the fridge is best for cakes and pastry and this makes good sense. What is the proper percentage of humidity for storing all things baked (and not yet baked)?

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