Why Teach Kids to Bake with a Scale (VIDEO)

I’ve been experimenting with baking by weight, and once I figured out how to convert my favorite recipes from cups to grams, I’m really thinking it’s the best way to learn to bake for kids. We teach kids how to measure flour in our Kids Cook Real Food online cooking class for kids – that they should let it “fall like snow” so the measurements are accurate. We show how if you pack down the flour, you get way too much – brick bread!But even when kids are being their most careful, there’s still a lot of margin for error when measuring flour, just because of settling, humidity, and more. Being precise is one reason I’m excited to continue to teach my kids to bake by weight, but I also thought of THREE more reasons weighing grains can help kids bake better!

Watch the Video: Why Weighing Flour is a Great Option for Kids Baking

If you can’t view the video above, click Why Baking by Weight is Great for Teaching Kids to Cook to see it directly on YouTube.#1: There’s less mess. With freshly ground flour for sure, the flour goes right into the bowl, so the kids don’t even fiddle with it.#2: You can use bigger bowls, so less spilling. When weighing flour, kids don’t have to worry about snowplowing flat, so they’re just putting the flour into a nice big bowl, not a measuring cup that they’re going to overfill. #3: You only have to measure once, and no extra flour. This is for families with their own grain  mill, like our Mockmill, but it’s so nice to just measure the whole grains in a bowl once, and then be done.A scale isn’t expensive, either, and you can emphasize math concepts through the measuring.

• The exact scale I have is a little different now on Amazon, but this one by the same brand looks more similar (and another color might be less expensive, worth checking)
• Here’s a better one others recommend
• But if you want to say super budget-friendly, here are a few that look like they’d get the job done: Simple Taste, Lucky Stone, 1byone
• The big difference to look for is how small the measurements get – if you want to be able to measure spices and truly never touch a measuring spoon or cup, you’ll need 0.1 gram increments. For me, I just measure the big stuff and 1g increments are plenty.

Do kids still need to learn to measure properly with cups and spoons, No Holes, No Hills? You bet! It’s a very important skill for anyone working with food, but using weight measurements is a pretty awesome tool to have in your cooking toolbox. I’m humble enough to admit that I’m just now learning how to do it as a mom of 4, but how cool that my kids will know it before they leave middle school!RELATED: Wish you knew what was appropriate to teach your kids in the kitchen at various ages? Check out our responsibilities for kids by age and stage in a real food kitchen printable!In a few weeks I get to share about our gluten-free sourdough starter experiment (successful! And not successful…) and how my kids did at least half the work. It’s so easy to use a kitchen scale and a good grain mill, that seriously, anyone can do it. It was amazing to be able to leave the house for a few days, train my kids once in the method, and let them take care of the feeding of the starter (and video tape it)! Be sure to grab our cups to grams conversion chart printable for all kinds of flour and embark on a new adventure with your kids! You can also find the same cups-to-grams conversion chart on this page, it’s just not in a printer-friendly format like that free printable.

More Grain Grinding Challenge Series Posts

The Grinding Challenge Series is getting me to use my Mockmill grain mill! Here’s what we’re covering:

• Intro to the challenge and a video of setting up the Mockmill for the first time
• How to Translate Whole Wheat Recipe to Einkorn (and an interview with an einkorn farmer)
• Bio-Individuality – why it’s both the new face of health and the genesis of this whole project
• How to Translate Baking Recipes to Weights
• Why Baking with Weights is the Best for Kids
• Testing Pizza Dough with Freshly Milled Grain: Whole Wheat, Einkorn, Gluten-free (whole grain and not-whole-grain)
• Interview with a Master Gluten-free Baker
• Testing Tortillas with Freshly Milled Grain: Whole Wheat, Einkorn, Gluten-free
• Why Mill Your Own Gluten-free Grains?
• How to Make a Gluten-free Sourdough Starter
• Whole Grain, Gum-Free Gluten-free Flour Blend (& a bit on whether xanthan gum is bad for you)
• Interview with a Grain Milling Expert
• The Official Kitchen Stewardship^® Mockmill Review

Plus where to find einkorn and unlock your special offer on the Mockmill HERE.

Recipes We’ve Worked on in the Series:

• Spelt Banana Muffins
• Einkorn Applesauce Muffins (with peanut butter variation)
• 100% Whole Grain Gluten-free Tortillas
• Whole Wheat Pizza
• Crispy Crust Gluten-Free Pizza (amazing!)
• Einkorn Pizza Dough
• 100% Whole Grain Gluten-Free Pizza Crusts (no gum!)
• How to Make a Gluten-Free Sourdough Starter

Don’t worry, if you don’t have a grain mill or couldn’t imagine yourself grinding grain yourself, I’ll be sure to address when any of these CAN’T be done with commercial flour. Usually, recipes are very compatible!