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Comment by analog31 | Hacker News Reader

I'm not pushing back at all, especially since I made two pancakes from Krusteaz this morning. What I like about Krusteaz is scaling down to 2 small pancakes without thinking about the proportions.

But when I'm on the ball, pancakes from scratch are really not much more trouble. My trick is that precise measurements don't matter. I eyeball all of the measurements into a big measuring cup, and it works just fine. From what I've read, precisely measured ingredients are a modern invention anyway. How would humanity have spread to all corners of the world, if they had to weigh the ingredients for their pancakes?

Yogurt instead of buttermilk.

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> From what I've read, precisely measured ingredients are a modern invention anyway.

I believe this is where the cup measurement came from. Baking is all about ratios, so you could take any (drinking) cup you happen to have and use it to measure your various ingredients, as the ratios will all work out by using the same cup.

I recently saw a very expensive chef’s spoon that was supposed to be a perfect teaspoon(?) and had various other features. It was sold out. Out of curiosity, I went into my drawer, pulled out my normal spoons I eat with and compared them to what my measuring spoons held. It was the same. I just use my normal spoons to measure now. Good enough. I can then use the spoon to eat with, depending on what it is.

That is a good point - scaling down to pancakes for one is a great use case for mixes.

As it happens, my preference for Krusteaz is not all convenience; they’re also what I grew up eating, and they’re still my favorite. I bake a lot from scratch, mostly cookies and bread with the occasional cake, and pancakes are the one thing I never make from scratch because I’m tired of trying everyone’s mom’s amazing recipe and finding it meh. (I’ll gladly spend a weekend morning making these amazing waffles, though: https://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/light-and-crispy-waffles)

I agree precise measurements don’t matter at all if you’re not too particular about how the finished product comes out. If you have strong preferences about how your baked goods taste, or you want to be able to communicate a recipe to someone else in a reproducible way, that’s when precise measurements start mattering. Kitchen scales were commonplace in England by the Victorian era, so it depends on your definition of “modern.”

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