Ounces, too, please. Can't teach this old dog new metric tricks--not without way too much effort...although you know we'll follow you anywhere!

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Please use ounces, I am old and I really don't want to start transposing into grams. Please please. Ounces

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Dear Rose:

The ounces measurement is best for me as all the recipes that I made, using the weight of ingredients, list them in ounces; therefore, to use grams would require an adjustment on my scale. That is a nuisance.

I love your recipes and am a devout follower. Keep up the great work.

Dorothy

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Grams and Ounces, please. Old habits are hard to break (even though I have a kitchen scale).

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Alex, you bring very GOOD points, and i im in total agreement.

I am sure Rose will keep the teaspoons as such, for salt, baking powder, essences, etc. Since Rose can also provide the exact weight of these, grams or decimals of grams should be included; this will be helpful for large scale multiplication of the recipe.

regarding keeping the grams rounded to increments of 10s or 20s, i TOTALLY AGREE. i dislike when a recipe calls for 454 grams of chocolate for example! clearly comes from thinking in lbs and then converting to grams. i will much prefer the recipe to be rewritten as 500 grams of chocolate instead!

scales are now accurate to the +/- 1 gram, from 10 grams to 7000 grams! isn't that great? just a few years ago, the accuracy was only +/- 5 or +/-10 and from 100 to 2000 grams only! if you need higher accuracy, such as +/- .1 or .01 grams, i now recommend getting a second scale. this will be much smaller and less expensive than finding a large scale with such degree of minute accuracy. in other words, we need a main scale, a bunch of spoon measures, and if desired, a second smaller scale.

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Dear Ms. Beranbaum,

First off, I am a huge fan of your books, and learned to bake cakes using your Cake Bible ( I think I have the 2st edition). The explanations of how things fit together has been so useful for learning how to create new or modified recipes as well. I can't say that your books convinced me to use weighed ingredients (my German relatives did that), but it's made it much easier to convince friends that it's a better way.

I am very much in favor of using metric units, with a few caveats.

First, many small quantities (salt, baking powder, etc) are much easier to measure by volume, so please don't get rid of tsp for things like that. Even my German cookbooks keep referring to things like a "knifetip" of salt.

Second, liquids are also so much easier to do by volume as well, even if I do weigh it in the end. Metric is much nicer for that, since most cooking liquids are right about 1ml/g.

Finally, it's really important not to merely translate the numbers over for adapted recipes, but to try to get them to round numbers (10s or 25s increments) gram increments). One of my mainstay recipes from your Bread Bible, the pizza dough, is clearly designed in terms of ounces. And, while I love the recipes in Heavenly Cakes, I can't ever bring myself to measure to the gram or even fractional gram -- it feels too much like my lab work, and I like to keep my baking a joy. Although I know that that +-5 grams of flour really doesn't have a significant effect on the texture, I always feel somewhat guilty about not following the recipe. :-)

The Cake Bible, by the way, was perfect in this regard.
Thank you again for your books.

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i am going to be a little arrogant here, and vote against anything but grams.

i respect everyones needs and valid reasons to include volumes and ounces, including such wonderful book from Lisa Yocklen, Baking Style, where my heart literally stopped reading about measuring flour in yet a method my narrow mind experience never heard of: stir and spoon.

i am sure all methods and tables of measures work, but why include all of them when with just some small practice and common sense one can adjust to the grams world? in my LIFETIME, i will NOT put any effort explaining what is anything but grams; i give it all in grams ONLY. even if the Smithsonian calls me one day for an assignment, i will speak grams only.

i tell my students and at my demos, get a darn scale and start reading grams, don't bother about conversions, and don't bother about how to properly pack the flour or the brown sugar, or measure chocolate, etc. grams is a number, that goes up one by one, just look at it as a plain simple straight reading.

is it safe to say that there is NO professional baker or bakery on the entire world using anything other than grams?

i still hope there is hope that BAKING BIBLE is only in grams. PERIOD. is the inconvenience such?

all the extra typing and real state space on the book because we need to list everything in every measure, should be used in a more productive way. it reminds me of how we send packages to our customers at my day job: because a handful of customers need a 2 copy color invoice, everyone gets a 2 copy color invoice (it used to be horrendous 4 copies before!). save the trees people, write only in grams, and the BAKING BIBLE will not be just a thinner book, but one with just more packed really useful info.

when i go to the grocery store, i think most everything is also listed in grams! don't you agree? it is in parenthesis next to the bloody ounces. and if not, why do consumers just need to buy exactly what is needed? come on, with one or two trips to any grocery store, the consumer can easily figure out that 500 grams of apples is like 4 apples. or that 250 grams of any liquids (milk, water, oil, etc), is roughly 1 cup.

when buying produce or fruits, the grocery store scales are only in lbs, but how hard is to remember that roughly 1 kilo = 2.5 lbs?

hey, if i could get used to buying groceries in lbs and ounces, coming as an immigrant from a country that only reads grams, as well as the other 30% of the USA residents who are immigrants, why can't the "locals" Americans learn the other way?

it is easier to use grams, it is faster, and now we have the tools to do it (inexpensive, yet accurate digital scales).

p.s. another reason to love ONLY grams is not having to deal with fractions.; with grams, you never need fractions.

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I love having all three measuring methods as you give in the Cake Bible as I like having all options. I sometimes use all three methods of measuring in one recipe. For example, for small measures such as tsp/Tbsp, I use a measuring spoon rather than weight as my scale is not accurate for such light weights.

When I am halving a recipe, for some ingredients, I sometimes find it more convenient to divide ounces than grammes and vice versa. Sometimes grammes are messy and othertimes, ozs are messy. It all depends on the amount. Can't think of a precise numerical measurement to illustrate, but try it against some recipes and see.

I also find the tabular presentation of ingredients efflicient and easy to follow.

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A gallon is 8 pints. A pint is 2 cups. 1/4 cup is 2 ounces. Q: How much is half of 1/4 cup? A: 2 tablespoons. Q: How much is half of one tablespoon? A: 1 1/2 teaspoons. How in the world is that *LESS* confusing than metric where everything is just a decimal number?

A liter is 1000 milliliters so a half a liter is 500 milliliters, a quarter is 250 milliliters, etc. 1 milliliter of water weighs 1 gram. A kilogram is 1000 grams. Etc., etc.

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Likewise, many non-American bakers are put off by American recipes because they are in cup and imperial measurements.

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Back in 1812 when I was in school, they attempted to teach us metrics and it was such a strain that they let all of us go back to using what we called standard measurements. I am afraid that if I had to use grams over ounces in a recipe I would skip that recipe. I don't want to use a calculator or my iphone to bake. Sorry. It's ounces for me.

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The lesson from this is that the States as a whole should change rather than poor bakers sticking to outdated measurements.

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Hello Rose,

I just want to chip some observations. As a baker based here in Nigeria, Africa, we use the metric system, but its difficult to get an electronic kitchen scale. The majority of scales, are the manual ones by Camry. I just want to give few pointers:
For ingredients such as cocoa, flour, sugar, butter, nuts, you may use grams

For ingredients such as flavor extracts (vanilla, almonds etc), salt; please kindly use teaspoons or tablespoons whereever applicable

For liquid ingredients such as eggs, creams/milk, water, oil; please kindly use cup measurement or grams, the cup measurement is easier for a single batch, but when scaling down or up a recipe for mass production, the metric (grams) comes in handy.

Thanks.

Wale

P.S. Is there a way you can write on the use of excel sponge or emulsifiers in general on baked goods and when its not neccessary. I did a research and wrote my views on the use of Ekcel spong which is a kind of emulsifier. I would love to send you a copy of that report for you to read and advice me further.

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Also watch out for accumulated rounding errors. I have a bread book where they obviously used ounces when developing the recipes and then for the book converted the ounces to grams, line by line in the ingredient lists. (Both grams and ounces were given.) But they also gave the total weight of all of the ingredients and sometimes when you added up all of the weights of the ingredients given in grams it didn't equal the total weight given at the bottom, in grams. I'm guessing that it was because they simply converted the total ounces weight to grams, rather than add all of the individual gram weights.

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Can you list the grams measure first in the ingredient list? It would be a subtle deprecation of the ounces.

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I am in complete agreement with Julie! The oz measurements make it so much easier for buying certain ingredients that, more often than not, are packaged in imperial quantities (pints of cream, pounds of butter, oz of chocolate....). I always weigh my ingredients in grams, but the oz is much easier for shopping here in the states.

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As a foreigner living in America, I am totally lost in the pervalence of imperial measurements in the States. The metric system is really so much more accurate - it's just a matter of getting used to a more scientific approach. No more ounces please!

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Well, I've always used the English measurements in your books. Metric may be more scientific, but I'm an American of a certain age and my brain thinks English, not metric, measurements. Metric will always be a matter of translation for me.

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I generally use grams when baking for all of the reasons you've noted. I've become increasingly adept at the conversions when needed. Even though I live in Canada, where the metric system is used to mark packages, etc., my intuitive understanding of weights is based on the Imperial system. More problematic is that many ingredients are packaged to a convenient gram measure and are no longer based on useful fractions of a pound (cream cheese seems to be one that I find problematic). Thank goodness butter is still packed as a pound since many recipes are based on a portion of a pound. Either way, I will be purchasing your next book.

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Dear Rose,

Sometimes, especially if I'm short on time, I decide what to bake based on what I have at home, so I don't have to take the time to go out on a shopping trip.

When estimating the quantity of ingredients I have on hand, I can pretty well tell whether I have 2 cups of cream or a cup & a half flour. But I have NO idea how much 448 grams cream is, or 215 grams of flour. I might learn it over time, as we use grams more and more, but today I'd have to weigh.

A cookbook with out ounces might have me pouring and weighing to find out if I have enough to make something.

I hope you'll keep ounces.

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I also use ounces for shopping purposes, especially when buying fruit, milk/dairy/butter, or chocolate. But when baking I weigh everything in grams, always.

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Hooray! And, of course I would continue to use your cookbooks! You are my baking mentor, don't you know?!? As an enthusiastic amateur, I devoured your Cake Bible (actually wore the binding out). When I worked as a baker in a local restaurant, your books were butter-splattered and flour-dusted on my shelves, amidst all my other essential tools. My baking has earned me quite a nice reputation in my circles, and I owe it to your fine tutelage. So, thank you for making it possible for me to continue to impress my friends with your delicious and reliable recipes!

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Call me old-fashioned, but I have a lovely and still very accurate balance scale that has a set of weights on one side and a pan on the other. The weights are all in ounces. Some of us haven't made the switch to digital, and don't see the need to. Please don't make me have to do all those calculations from grams to ounces, just to use your future cookbooks!

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Chris has a good point. I had planned not to comment because I thought I pretty much exclusively use grams, but when thinking about pies/fruit desserts, I do often use the ounces column to make my shopping lists--eg, buy 1.5 pounds of apples.

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I like to use ounces when selecting fresh produce-type items for baking. The scales in the grocery store display pounds, and I can use ounces as fractions of pounds much easier than I can do grams.

That being said, if there was only grams, I would have to convert those values to pounds before I did my shopping. I weigh ingredients in grams, anyway.

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I agree that ounces are not as helpful as grams. I just skip over the ounces in your cookbooks and go straight to grams. At first, it's kind of weird using grams for liquids, but we should get used to it because it's more efficient. You should take the chance to use your influence to encourage home cooks to use the better measure.

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Shalom,

I use all of them but my scale can do both. There is also a useful app on the iPhone called MeasuresLite that will convert oz to grams for you as well as plenty of other measurements. I don't think just having grams would be bad unless restaurant packaging only has one form of measurement over the other.

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