With Spring comes something new. Something fresh and beautiful. Flowers, lambs, a lot of babies, and for me, a brand new way to bake. You may question my linking these things together, but in my life, my baking is one of the central elements When something comes along and makes that baking better and more efficient, well sister, that's a beautiful thing! Shauna, of glutenfreegirl fame, has organized a movement among bloggers to start baking using a scale as opposed to measuring by volume. It is called The Gluten Free Ratio Rally. Serious and professional bakers (and I'm pretty sure Europeans) have always used scales. I started using a scale about a year ago, off and on, but kept measuring for the blog. I just wanted to make sure that readers would find my recipes user-friendly. Now, however, I tend to feel as if I am doing you all a disservice in not printing my recipes the way that I create them; using the trusty scale.
There is a solid and quite obvious reason one should weigh her ingredients. It's more precise. If you are a baker then you understand how important precision is to the outcome of your creation. When you weigh them out there is less of a chance that you have scooped out the brown rice flour or the sugar differently than the person who created the recipe you are following. He or she may have poured the flour into the measuring cup whereas you might drag the cup sideways to fill it up. These differences matter. They matter quite a bit. Plus, when you use a scale you cut down on the mess and the clean-up.
However, the most important reason to join us in this revolution is how liberated you will feel. It's like someone literally gave you the formulas for anything you want to bake and said "Go for it!". You create the flavor combination you think would be fabulous, follow the base of the ratio for that item, tweak it as you see fit, and Voila'! You've just written a recipe. How does it feel? Pretty cool, huh?
