Baking peas: is a kitchen scale worth the trouble?

My scale is very small maybe 4x6 so not an issue to store. Using a scale is less trouble than measuring cups because you can measure right into your bowl and won’t need to wash measuring cups.

Yes! I use my scale all the time.

I love my scale - it's actually a postage scale and will weigh in lbs/oz or in grammes.

A kitchen scale is definitely worth having. If you bake a lot, I'd recommend one that measure both dry and liquid measures, as well as switches between imperial and metric weights. Mine is by Salter, is very thin and doesn't take up much room. I also use it to weigh packages.

Yes, I use mine all the time. If you like having consistent results it’s worth getting because when you’re just scooping the ingredients (especially things like flour and powdered sugar) how you do that affects how much is packed into the cup and it can be variable whereas if you’re weighing it the weight will always be exact.

I just used mine last week when I was baking my bread. I weighed out the whole batch of dough, divided that by how many portions I wanted to make (2 loaves from one batch and 24 rolls from the other) and everything comes out very close to the same size every time.

It’s also very handy if you are counting calories and using an app like My Fitness Pal. You can track exactly what you’re eating each day.

The one I have I think was under ten bucks on Amazon. It’s small and takes up almost no space to store. It measures in pounds, ounces and grams and has a tare feature so you can put your bowl or container on the scale and zero it out so you are only weighing the ingredients you are adding.

ETA: I think part of why I like using it is because I’m sort of a perfectionist. I want my stuff to come out exactly, reliably the same every.single.time. It’s for that same reason why I use a cookie scoop for drop cookies instead of a spoon. Yes, I could just grab dough by the handful and roll it into balls but they will never be uniform and perfect. When I use a cookie scoop, they are all uniform, the exact same size and shape, and presumably the same caloric content. When you weigh the ingredients you will end up with the exact same quantity of dough, filling, icing, etc. every time.

So my experience is different. I don't use mine hardly at all. Mostly I use it as a postage scale. The only other time I use it is when I am making soap. So it is kept in the office and if I have a need for it, I know where it is at and go get it. I've been baking for 60 years, since I was ten and really have never had a need for scales. None of my recipes use weight so I don't worry about it.

I don't bake yet I have had a kitchen scale since 2003. Here is the newest one I purchased. It has been going strong since 2011, and I LOVE it. I tend to weigh food for snack bags, measuring smoothie ingredients, etc. LOVE this thing! I use it daily.

Cuisinart Food Scale

Yes, a kitchen scale is ESSENTIAL for me. I keep a couple different sourdough starters (which have to be "fed" with precisely the same amount by weight of water/flour every week) and every 2 weeks I bake bread using a formula instead of a "recipe" so I have to have the scale. I also occasionally use it for cooking (especially pasta like someone else mentioned above).

I'm not sure what brand I have, but it wasn't expensive (maybe $15). It's about 5-7 inches square and 2 inches tall. It's super simple, just a button on the side to turn it on/zero it out and then a couple buttons on the bottom (one is to switch between metric and standard weights, I don't even know what the other button is for lol). I use it so often that it sits out on my counter under a small shelf.

Yes I have one and love it. I would call it a kitchen essential. I use it frequently especially since I buy food in bulk from Costco such as ground chuck and salmon and I vacuum seal and mark the weights on the packages. I also weigh a lot of my food for dietary reasons and is a necessity.

I also cut a lot of recipes in half since there are just the 2 of us to bake and cook for.  The scale makes it so much easier and much more accurate.  

I have this Polder scale which is a slim .5” and only 7.75” x 7.75” square. I slip it into a shallow kitchen drawer right below the counter I use it on.

Polder Slim Scale


For mailing, I prefer my Accuteck Scale
Accuteck Digital Scale

I have a small digital kitchen scale but I use it for weighing hamburger meat for recipes, never for baking. I live in a high altitude, which is tricky for baking, but I've never had a problem once I adjusted for the altitude or used high altitude recipes.

I can’t imagine baking without scales. But then in UK I think it’s more the norm. Some things need to be specific to achieve great results, more so in baking than a lot of other types of cooking.

Yes. Instead of weighing out messy things like butter or peanut butter I just weigh them. Put the whole bowl on the scale, turn it on and In the front of my recipe book I have the conversions for each thing, 1/2 cup butter = 113 gm.

I don't think about it as getting more accurate or perfect baking, just an more convenient way of measuring.

I bake a ton, at a very high altitude (over 7000ft.) The only time I’ve used my scale is when I made macarons, and that was exactly once.