Ooops its the metric system. I meant 400 grams. Check it out.

Hi Gene - Low humidity and a moderate 65 degrees?  I’m jealous . 

I have a Salter digital scale and was weighing all-purpose flour from Costco that I keep in an airtight container.  I think you’re right… must be your extraordinary physical ability to compress flour

Could the difference in scales be the reason two different people are getting two different results?  Maybe one is more “sensitive” than the other.

I made the All-Occasion Downy Yellow last night and used my scale for the first time!!  I noticed when I weigh by grams it only registers an even number.  So for vanilla extract I could use 8 or 10 grams but not 9 grams like the recipe called for, and I had the same issue with the baking powder.  Is 1 gram difference an issue??

I used Softasilk and sifted into the bowl.  Then returned the scale to zero, and poured in the sugar fearlessly until I got to 300 grams, and repeated the same for the other dry ingredients.  Is this how everyone else does it?  I was very trusting until I got to the baking powder and kept pouring and pouring.  It seemed like I was pouring quite a bit more than what I would have used by volume.  But I just trusted it and kept going. 

Anyway, the cake turned out awesome - light, airy, fluffy, melt in your mouth goodness.  I did have quite a bit of crumbs when I cut it, which I don’t mind for an old-fashioned-no-frills-keep-at-home cake.  But I think it would be hard to carve it.  I did put it in the fridge, so we will see if that helps with the carving ability. 

Although I had some temp issues.  My oven bakes hot anyway, but I had just baked two lbs. of meatloaf at 375 for an hour, so it wasn’t cooling down like it normally does.  And I didn’t have 9x1.5 pans, so I used 8x2 pans.  Due to the oven running hot, the edges got done a little faster than they should have, but not to a crisp though.

That sounds right GA, except I never weigh leavening (unless a large amount), I measure that by volume.  You have to have a very sensitive scale to do that correctly.  Something else you should know—even if your scale is that sensitive, after a certain weight, the fineness of the measuring decreases—so if you did it after the sugar, it is likely that the scale would have been even less sensitive to the smaller quantity of baking powder.

You should try cake strips for the sides—it works wonders for butter cakes.  You can make your own at home with foil and wet paper towels.

Good to know about the leavening.  Thanks!! 

I was thinking about the cake strips but thought I would try the recipes without them for a while.  I haven’t really had issues with my sides using other recipes since I got the oven thermometer.  Do the cake strips help with the texture/crumb?  From some of the other posts, it looks like a couple others had issues with it being a little too crumbly.  Other suggestions were to sub bleached AP flour and mix a little longer than suggested.

A gram is a pretty small amount. 1 oz is 28.349523 grams. As M points out it takes a nice scale to measure small quantities. A modern penny weighs 2.5 grams. My scale shows 3 grams for the first penny then 5 for the second penny then 8 for the third penny. So it is always rounding up to the nearest gram. Of course you want to use the shiniest newest pennies you can find.

GA - even if your oven temp is spot on, insulated cake strips are wonderful.  If you bake a butter cake without them, the pan walls heat up very quickly, which “sets” the batter at the edge of the pan, while the batter in the center of the pan will continue to rise, resulting in a domed cake.  Insulated baking strips have nearly eliminated the need for me to level my butter cakes after baking.

Now, really.  Is 2/100ths of a GRAM really going to make any difference at all.  Which weighs more?  A pound of feathers or a pound of lead?

Our grandmothers’ are probably all rolling their eyes at us.

For the record; I tend to weigh then sift, or sift into a bowl that is on the scale.  It depends.  When I tackle a genoise I might be a bit more picky. 

What I love about weighing ingredients is the elimination of the variations in weight over the dip and sweep vs spoon lightly into vs sifted before or after.  A pound is a pound is a pound, and by any other name would still weigh 16oz.

Happy experimenting.

JennyBee