Weighing Ingredients or Options

Promises, promises! These posts won't always be heavier than a fully butter loaded pound cake... but, while they are- in the exactly right thin slices, pound cake is rich, delicious, and full of flavor. Just that little bit of something simple and special.

Cooking is like a free for all! Not much weighing or measuring is required for a dish to turn out exactly the way you want. Creative freedom abounds when one cooks. Baking, on the other hand- is, in fact, a science expierment. If each ingredient is not properly measured or weighed, if each ingredient isn't at the proprer temperature at use, if you are too aggressive with the stirring or mixing, or not aggressive enough, and if the oven isn't level and at the exact correct temperature- you'll end up with a baking dish or cookie sheet full of good intentions.

When cooking, it is very simple to double, triple, or even make more of a recipe, that can't happen when baking. It changes the formula, it changes the science of it all. The flour, the leavening, the fat ratios, the liquid ratios- you can always bake one batch the way a recipe is written and maybe squeak out a double batch-but if you start tripling the recipe, or making commercial quantities, you better start weighing your ingredients and know your ratios.

The beauty of it, is you do have options... you can always bake many small batches, or you can figure out the ratios and weigh out your ingredients. You will be successful either way, just two different means to an end.

I liken this scenario to my most recent business venture. As I became more experienced and more confident, I was willing to be a little riskier and try a little more advanced recipe that required some specialized techniques. But instead of jumping into it with a recipe for huge quantities and being committed to baking batch after batch, I weighed my options. I was skilled enough to create a recipe that was for one year, three years, or five years... It wasn't something I just dove head first into. For me, I did the right thing... I baked up one batch, one year- I found out it was kind of like the pound cake for me. However delicious it is, a small amount was perfect for me. I didn't need to triple my recipe- but I did weigh my options and ingredients. My recipe baked up perfectly and now I can move on to a different recipe with a different flavor. I like small hand made batches, but I know how to properly weigh ingredients and my options.