When you buy a five-pound bag of flour, you might think about how many cookies or loaves of bread or cakes you’ll be able to make with it. Even though flour is sold by the pound, many recipes say how much flour to use in cups. How many cups are there in that five-pound bag?
It’s hard to say. The amount of flour in a five-pound bag depends on the type of flour and how it is measured. Cook’s Illustrated says that one cup of all-purpose flour has about 5 ounces. This means that a five-pound bag of flour would have about 16 cups. King Arthur Flour says that one cup of all-purpose flour is equal to 4.25 ounces. This means that a five-pound bag of flour has a little less than 19 cups.
How you measure flour is important.
One reason it’s hard to say for sure how many cups of flour are in a five-pound bag is that there are a lot of factors at play. How you scoop flour into a measuring cup affects how much flour ends up in the cup and in your recipe.
For example, if you put the measuring cup into a bag of flour and scoop it out, you are likely to get a lot of flour in the cup. If you scoop the flour into the measuring cup, it will pack down, giving you more flour than if you used a different method.
Most of the time, the best way to measure flour is to spoon it into the measuring cup and then use the back of a knife to even out the top. Cook’s Illustrated says that the amount of flour in a cup can vary by up to 20 percent depending on how you measure it.
Flour Can Be Sifted or Not.
Whether you sift the flour before using it in a recipe is another thing that changes how many cups are in a bag of flour. When you sift flour before adding it to a recipe, you break up any lumps and add air, which makes the flour lighter. Most of the time, sifted flour weighs less but has more volume than flour that hasn’t been sifted.
If you are going to sift flour, there is one thing you should remember. Pay close attention to the list of ingredients. If a recipe says “1 cup sifted flour,” sift the flour before you measure it. For recipes that say “1 cup sifted flour,” measure out the flour and then sift it.
Different kinds of flour
The weights and sizes of different types of flour are different. King Arthur Flour says that one cup of whole wheat flour weighs less than one cup of all-purpose flour. One cup of whole wheat flour weighs about four ounces, while one cup of all-purpose flour weighs about 4.25 ounces.
Whether to measure flour by weight or by volume
When you cook, it doesn’t take much thought to add a pinch of seasoning here and a splash of oil there. It’s important to use exact measurements when you’re baking. If you don’t, the end result might not be quite what you had in mind.
Many bakers prefer to weigh their ingredients instead of use measuring cups because measuring by weight is usually more accurate than measuring by volume.
How to Get Better at Measuring
You can still bake to your heart’s content if you don’t have a kitchen scale and don’t want to buy one. To get more accurate and consistent results, all you have to do is learn how to measure flour. Make sure you are using a measuring cup made for dry ingredients. The best thing to do is to spoon flour into the cup instead of trying to scoop it out of the package.
Try not to shake or slam the measuring cup as you put flour in it. You don’t want to squish the flour. If not, you might have too much.
