A digital scale is a basic tool in the simplified kitchen. There are culinary reasons to use one, yes; primarily precision which is why professional bakers measure by weight rather than by volume (cups.) And European home kitchens use scales; their recipes are written in metric weight. But for today’s American kitchen, be it a studio apartment kitchen or large space with an island and two dishwashers, there is a universal purpose: a digital scale makes cooking simpler.

Spoon ingredients directly from their containers into a bowl placed on the scale. Zero out the weight of the bowl with the push of a button and add dry ingredients, one by one, zeroing out the weight before each new addition. By eliminating many motions from scooping into measuring cups and leveling and then cleaning and storing all that, cooking goes with ease and less clutter. And you too may find, like me, that when I measure by volume I tend to use more. I have found the results superior when I measure by weight. Primarily, using a digital scale is efficient and makes cooking simpler.

The most current SimplyCooking® recipes list dry ingredients in grams as well as their approximate measurement in cups. With a digital scale it is just as easy to measure in grams as ounces. I prefer the precision of grams so I simply press the button to switch between grams and ounces. There are 28.34 grams per ounce so you can see how much more precise one can be measuring in grams. The doubling, tripling or halving of recipes is easy when using recipes in grams and with ratios. I have over time changed my recipe writing to this format from one with volume measurements for a set number of servings. A recipe for one can just as easily be made for two, ten or even twenty. With ratios and weights rather than measurements by volume and all the calculations - which can result in errors - increasing or decreasing portions is simplified.

These are strategies I have found to make cooking simpler and more enjoyable and the recipes more flexible. And that results in a greater propensity to cook from scratch on a daily basis, to cook mindfully, simply and find it meaningful. A digital scale is key to that style of simple-scratch cooking.

As for how I developed this approach, two summers ago a young woman from France lived with us. While she was plenty busy with her advertising internship and shopping, sunning, seeing movies and living the busy life of a young American in summer, she liked hanging in the kitchen. We would chat about food and recipes. We read American cookbooks and translated recipes from French Saveur Magazine. We cooked almost daily together, comparing techniques and explaining English and French cooking terms and discovering many similarities in the universal language of food. (Egg whites with a speck of yolk don't beat properly in France or the US. ) An enthusiast of macaroons, I jumped at the chance when she wanted to make her mother's macaroon recipe and teach me her technique. Oh, but the measuring. She insisted the ingredients be measured by weight {grams} with a digital scale. This mysterious territory was about to profoundly simplify my cooking. Anne and I selected an OXO digital scale from the local Bed Bath & Beyond and spent a lovely afternoon baking the best green tea macaroons on Earth. With curiosity, I continued measuring all ingredients by weight and found it easy to memorize the basic conversions to grams. The scale switches from ounces to grams and I gravitated to the precision of the smaller unit of grams. I became one of the converted American home cooks who swears by more consistent and superior results from measuring by weight instead of by volume. As I made the switch to measuring by weight, something about my cooking became apparent: I am a heavy-handed and inconsistent measurer. We can make a recipe that works for some people and not for us. Toll House Cookies are known for turning out differently from cook to cook. It’s partly because we measure differently, unless, we use a digital scale.

How to Measure Dry Ingredients with a Digital Scale

Keep and use the digital scale strategically near ingredients, mixing bowls, whisks and spoons.
Place ingredients one by one in a single bowl on the scale, zeroing out the weight between each addition and importantly, after you place the bowl on the scale.
Do not store items on the scale.
Use a little piece of parchment or waxed paper to weigh foods like butter or nuts.