Okay so yesterday I tried baking these chocolate cookies – real fancy recipe book stuff. Calls for 200 grams of flour. Great.
I stare at my stupid kitchen scale. Battery’s dead. Of course. Like every time I actually need it. So I grab my measuring cups instead. Now what? How many cups is 200 grams? Recipe doesn’t say. My phone’s sticky with chocolate but I wipe it off quick.
Google time. Type in “200 grams to cups baking”. Boom. A bazillion results. Some say different things. One site screams “IT’S FLUFFY!” Another yells “SPOON IT CAREFULLY!”. Feels like a baking battle out there.
Alright, roll up my sleeves. Get my big bag of flour. Got two cup measures – one plastic, one metal. Found an online chart everyone swears by, says for plain flour:
- 1 cup = 120 grams
Simple math, right? Not quite.
Doing the math headache. 200 divided by 120 is… well, screw fractions. It’s 1 and a bit cups. 200 divided by 120 gives me roughly 1.666. So like 1 and 2/3 cups? Who actually knows what that looks like? Especially me, kitchen math genius.
Operation Fluff. Grab a spoon. Stir the flour in the bag like a crazy person. Supposedly this makes it lighter? No clue. Try spooning flour gently into the plastic cup. Fill it to the top. Level it off with a knife. Looks like the right amount. Now for the extra 80 grams (since 1 cup = 120g, I need 80g more).
- 80 divided by 120? That’s roughly 2/3 cup.
So total: One full cup plus two thirds of another cup.
The messy reality. I pour the first cup. Fine. Now for the 2/3 cup. Grab the metal cup. Fill it roughly two thirds. Looks like a mound. Try to level it with the knife. Flour snow everywhere. Counter looks like a powdered donut exploded.
Combining. Dump both cups worth into my mixing bowl. Seems… reasonable? Maybe? Doubt sets in immediately. Is this too much? Too little? No dead scale to confirm. Decide to just run with it. Too late now!
Mixing chaos. Throw in the rest of the wet ingredients. Batter feels kinda thick. Denser than usual. Think, “Hmmm, maybe the flour level was generous.” Wonder if spooning works at all. Maybe scooping with the cup straight from the bag is better? Who knows! Everyone online argues about it. One thing’s clear: my kitchen counter needs disaster relief.
The baking result. Cookies came out okay! Maybe slightly denser, chewier than last time. Not bricks, thankfully. Roommate eats three without complaint. Victory? Kinda.
The real takeaway mess.
Cups are messy. Grams are numbers. Numbers are better. Duh.
All flour is not created equal. That spoon and level business? It helps.
That chart I found? Seems legit enough for plain flour. Keep it handy on my phone. Written in blood (figuratively) now:
- Plain Flour: 1 cup ≈ 120 grams
So, 200 grams ≈ 1 cup + 2/3 cup
Counter cleaning required afterwards? Every. Single. Time.
Seriously considering buying scale batteries in bulk. Or just supergluing the scale to the wall always plugged in. This conversion stuff is fine for emergencies, but scales make it a one-second problem. Who cares about cups?
Bottom Line. Got cookies. Used cups. Math happened. Cleanup sucked. Science experiment gone weirdly edible. Next time: I’m buying the damn batteries.