# Metric recipes use mass not volume?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metric-recipes-use-mass-not-volume/571330>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [February 14, 2011, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metric-recipes-use-mass-not-volume/571330 "2011-02-14T18:07:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 6

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**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\
**Post date:** [February 16, 2011, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metric-recipes-use-mass-not-volume/571330/101 "2011-02-16T09:52:49Z")

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> [@Norse](#):
>
> Uh-huh?
> 
> For most of my baking, I don’t need precision. Especially WRT the amount of flour, because the moisture content and the gluten content of the flour varies. I never measure the flour when I’m making yeast bread. I’ve got a ratio between liquid and yeast, everything else is added on a “feels right” basis. And then add flour to nice consistency, whatever the amount. And don’t even get me started on egg sizes!

Well, hooray for you and the other masters who cook and bake just by feel. How about I promise not to send the baking police over to you to force you to follow detailed recipes, and in return, you’ll allow normal people baking to get less-cryptic recipes they can actually use?

In a Dr. Oetker baking book (about simple “shake cakes” - the dough isn’t stirred as usual, but put into a big mixing bowl with a lid and shaken for 5 min. Supposedly that is easier than stirring it the usual way), about half a dozen recipes are “cup cakes” - measured with a cup instead of a scale. For each of these special recipes, it states in the first line “for the purpose of this recipe, we used an empty joghurt cup of 200 ml. volume” and in brackets, they give the approximate weight of the ingredients for those who want to weigh it.

That approach of giving both metric weight and US volume sounds to me to be the easiest and non-ambigious approach, avoiding also the dry ounces/ wet ounces / US ounces/ Brit. ounces confusion.

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**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\
**Post date:** [February 16, 2011, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metric-recipes-use-mass-not-volume/571330/102 "2011-02-16T11:01:18Z")

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> [@constanze](#):
>
> That approach of giving both metric weight and US volume sounds to me to be the easiest and non-ambigious approach, avoiding also the dry ounces/ wet ounces / US ounces/ Brit. ounces confusion.

Trouble is, this only works very well for recipes designed first in volume measures - recipes that originate in grammes and ml don’t necessarily convert cleanly at all, because cups are a comparatively coarse scale.

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