Hello from Illinois! | The Fresh Loaf

Hi everyone!

Im so happy to have found this forum! I just started making bread and really love it. My family does too. I can't wait to try some of the recipes here. One question though, if a recipe calls for 5 cups of flour, how many ounces is that? I never know if they mean flour packed into the cup or just loosley filling the cup?

Thanks

Stacey

Welcome to the forum and you have immediately stumble upon the "how much does a cup of flour weigh?" issue. If your recipe is from a book, see if the weight of a cup of flour is defined in the book somewhere. If not, see if they describe how to fill a cup with flour. If those both fail, it is unlikely that they mean a packed cup of flour and more likely the recipe would expect a loosely filled and leveled cup.

This is why all recipes should be by weight and not by volume.

Happy Baking,

Jeff

Most recipes call for the flour to be lightly spooned (or sifted) into a cup and then leveled off with a straight edge. This means that most finely ground flour weighs 4.3 oz./cup (120 g/cup). Pastry flour is less dense and weighs about 4.0 oz./cup (113 g/cup), coarse ground rye and whole wheat may weigh 4.7 - 4.8 oz./cup. However, I have seen bakers simply scoop up a cup of flour and shake off the excess and tell the audience that was a cup of flour. It must have weighed at least 5 oz. Ford