A Tip Involving Measuring Shortening
Decorating By tuffstuff Updated 8 Sep 2008 , 2:10pm by Lindakbh
I recently came to a realization that I wish had happened long ago. I already have a food scale for my weight watchers stuff but I never thought to use it for measuring ingredients for cakes until my last baking session.
I don't use it for all the ingredients - so far just for shortening, sour cream and powdered sugar. Shortening and sour cream were especially annoying to measure with measuring cups so I figured out how much a cup weighs in grams and divide or multiply from there. Soooo much easier. I love how you can just plop the stuff right into your other ingredients by just zeroing it out. 
Another way to measure shortening is to do it in water. Like fill a four cup measure to the 2 cup level and then plop the shortening in until the water reaches the three cup mark--or whatever. Pour out the water and wa la.
I like to weigh some stuff too. Good call.
I use a postage scale.
edited to say the better idea for me is to use my scale to weigh the food I eat like you do!!!
I love this type of measuring cup for things like butter and shortening.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00024WN3Q/?tag=cakecentral-20
I love this type of measuring cup for things like butter and shortening.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00024WN3Q/?tag=cakecentral-20
That looks a lot like the Measure All cup that Pampered Chef makes, and it's the ONLY one I use for shortening, peanut butter... anything that's normally hard to get out of a regular cup or leaves behind a real mess. I love my measure all! 
If you have a Pampered Chef person you know or are going to a party any time soon, I highly recommend this!
I weigh just about anything that I need more than a tablespoon of now, too- flour, sugar, liquids, fats. It saves time and a lot of clean-up, and is also more accurate, since ingredients can vary in volume.
With my scale, I can set the mixer bowl on it, hit âresetâ and it sets the display to zero. I then add the ingredient until it is the right amount then hit reset and put in the next ingredient, etc. You do have to be careful not to go over, though, like with liquids.
I love it and have converted most of my recipes to weights.
I use either method (scale or Measure All)...it just depends on how lazy I am or how full the dishwasher is
I used to just buy the Crisco pre-measured sticks, but now that I'm converted to high-ratio I have to measure it!
99% of all American recipes use cups to measure with. One of the most important ingred. in baking is flour. Go to your flour bin, and measure out 5 even cups of flour. Weigh each one. Tomorrow do the same thing. The # will be different. One cup of sifted flour is less (in weight) than one cup of non-sifted flour. We wonder why hardly anyone can find a good scratch cake recipe. It's because our scaling isn't consistant. One of the dumbest things is Brown sugar. Tightly packed one cup. WTH is that. I can pretty much gaurentee I can pack B. Sugar more tightly than most.
So since we keep doing this, weighing out ingredients has to be close to the darkside of things. 
Mike
Another Crisco tip I have read on here is to line your measuring cup with plastic wrap. When you are down throw out the plastic wrap and you don't have the mess in the cup.
I like the ice cream scoop idea as well.
Can I actually use my postal scale??? I have one stashed down in the basement and never thought to use it for baking! I HATE measuring everything out. I think it would be soooo much easier to weigh!!! Thanks guys for the tips! They are awesome. Keep em comin!!
Teresa
Can I actually use my postal scale??? I have one stashed down in the basement and never thought to use it for baking! I HATE measuring everything out. I think it would be soooo much easier to weigh!!! Thanks guys for the tips! They are awesome. Keep em comin!!
Teresa
I think postal scales are easier. Like when I make bread. I have the bowl, flour, yeast, honey. All of that comes to almost 7#s. A regular kitchen scale won't handle the weight.
Mike
Another Crisco tip I have read on here is to line your measuring cup with plastic wrap. When you are down throw out the plastic wrap and you don't have the mess in the cup.
WOW! That is an AWESOME idea! Even using the Measure All cup from Pampered Chef, it still gets a greasy film on the inside - I LOVE the idea of lining with plastic wrap and will use that the next time! That will make life so much easier!!
Thanks 
Yup..i measure my powdered sugar, crisco..etc.. by scale now. It's so much easier.
I was trying to figure out costs and needed the scale to figure it out. i will never go back. I use to dread measuring shortening, now it's so easy.
In the USA a cup = 8ozs or 1/2 pint Hope this helps!!!
8 fl. oz. and 8 oz. by weight are NOT the same. A cup of shortening and a cup of flour do not weigh the same, and neither weighs 8 oz.
Mike, my kitchen scale only goes up to 5 lbs, but if I "tare" or "reset" the weight for each ingredient, it will surely measure each one up to 5 lbs. so if I add 3 lbs of flour, hit "tare" and add 2 lbs butter, hit tare and add 1 lb. sugar, it will handle each of the ingredients just fine.
I've been weighing everything for years. It's the only really accurate way to get consistent resultats every time.
It should be quite obvious to everyone that a cup doesn't always weigh 8 ounces. I mean, does a cup of feathers weigh the same as a cup of lead shot? Duh.
Great info, but for those of us (me) that are math illiterit 
(maybe spelling too) how do you convert to weight. Is there a reliable chart. Also, for those that already have one, what type of scale is best. I don't have one yet, so what would you all recomend?
I got mine on ebay. It goes up to 35 pounds (I used it mainly for postage purposes until I found out I could use it for my baking, too!) I only paid around $30 for it. I just recently started using it for my ingredients and will never go back when it comes to measuring stuff like shortening!
Teresa
Is there a good resource for accurate conversions from the cup measurement to weight? I've seen a couple charts that have been found on-line and they aren't necessarily the same weights/cup for the same ingredient... Or, those of you who do weigh, have you just weighed out the measurements and made you're own charts?
I have a chart that came with my scale. For vegetable shortening it shows that one cup is equal to 7 ounces.
The scaleâs brand is Salter and I highly recommend it, though it is a bit pricey. I believe my DH got it at Williams Sonoma (it was a gift). The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum also has weight equivalent charts for common cake ingredients and all of her recipes show volume and weight amounts in both grams and ounces.
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