Why You Need Digital Kitchen Scales

Why it's essential for home cooks and bakers to use digital kitchen scales for consistently successful results. Let me convince you!

Why Do I need a Digital Kitchen Scale?

Many recipes use weight measurements, especially in professional baking. A digital scale allows you to easily follow these recipes without the hassle of converting volumes to weights. Don't make macarons and patisserie without it!

Digital scales streamline the measuring process. With the tare function, you can weigh multiple ingredients in the same bowl, reducing cleanup and saving precious time.

It takes the maths out of weighing ingredients. Digital scales eliminate the guesswork and inconsistencies that come with using measuring cups.

Grams or Ounces = Same Language?

As baking in France, rest of Europe and in the UK is measured in metric grams (millilitres and kilos), all my recipes and in my books are also given in grams.

In most recipes on the website, I have added both ounces and cups purely as an approximate guide.

Weight vs Volume

Baking or making patisserie is a science. Let's not get all technical, but yes, it's chemistry and if you change anything from 20g to 50g of flour or sugar in the oven, it can be a disaster. Believe me, I've been there: you'll measure your life before digital scales!

Making macarons or pastries require exact quantities to the nearest gram (or ⅛ ounce), so you'll need digital scales to weigh your ingredients precisely.

Cups are Not Accurate For Measuring Pâtisserie

CUPS are not an accurate enough measurement to enable us to bake or cook consistently well. Especially when it comes to baking pâtisserie like macarons, tarts, ganaches etc. For example:

• One cup of plain (all-purpose) flour is about 125g or 130g. I get conflicting results throughout - so what if I want to use precisely 125g flour? It also isn't the same weight as whole wheat flour or gluten-free flour;
• One cup of almond flour (ground almonds) is 100g - so is NOT the same weight as a cup of plain flour either.
• Likewise, you can't just throw in 4 egg whites and hope for the best that it will be 150g if my macaron recipe asks for it. It may just work, but next time you try the recipe, it could go wrong since 4 egg whites could be anything between 120g and 160g depending on the size and freshness of your eggs.
• Butter: is that 28g or 30g, ¼ stick or 2 tablespoons? Or 1.5 tablespoon for only 20g?

I could go on - but do you get the picture? Working in cups also means referring to charts of cups of flour, almond flour, granulated sugar, powdered sugar, butter...
It's so much easier in grams.

How to Choose the Best Digital Kitchen Scales

To choose the best digital kitchen scales, here's a quick checklist. Most importantly, these days scales are not expensive.

• The LCD display is easy to read and buttons are large.
• It measures in BOTH metric and imperial weights. If following a recipe in ounces or in grams, you can switch to either at the touch of a button. That way we're speaking the same international kitchen language.
• It's ACCURATE to the nearest gram or ⅛ ounce - and measures liquids too.
• It's full 5kg (11lb) CAPACITY is a lovely feature. Some scales go up to 3kg (9lb) capacity, which is still more than enough for making pastries at home. My last scale would go into overdrive if I placed a heavy glass bowl on it. So having a large capacity is a nice feature.
• A TARE function, which means being able to reset it to zero so you can add and weigh more ingredients in the same bowl. Just switch back to zero to weigh the next ingredient. This economises on washing up!
• Weight is indicated for a whole TWO MINUTES. This is a feature I love compared with my last (and expensive!) scale, since often I'll be measuring out icing (powdered) sugar and I run out towards the end. By the time I get another packet, the scale used to switch off. This scale doesn't thus saves me the hassle of re-weighing;
• If they rely on batteries, check how long it lasts. It should also warn you when you need to change batteries.