The one kitchen item that will change your baking game forever.

My grandma didn’t use scales.

My mum didn’t either. After all, cooking is an art form, right? Throw a few things together that should work, test as you go, and hey presto!

Not always.

That might work for cooking, but baking is a science. And if there’s one thing I learned on The Great Australian Bakeoff, it’s that the difference between a batch of delicious, round, uniform biscuits, and one giant sloppy pancake biscuit is one item:

Kitchen scales.

I’m so sorry ANZAC queen @moniquebowley This year I’ve really let you down…

A post shared by Holly Wainwright (@wainwrightholly) on Apr 25, 2017 at 2:29am PDT

You can get a set these days for about 20 bucks, and the difference in your baking will be remarkable.

Listen to chef Matt Moran on what he can’t live without in the kitchen:

Why?

Baking is about precision.

And while most cookbooks, magazine recipes and online recipes offer ingredients in cups and spoon measurements, if you want to up your baking game, the way to perfection is through watching your weight.

04//15/17. I was trying for an angel food cake. Instead, I got a Lucifer cake. It’s fallen. Happy Easter to me! ????????#cakefail

A post shared by Vickie Palmer (@vickiepalmer) on Apr 15, 2017 at 4:00pm PDT

Not all ingredients are measured the same.

How dense is your ingredient? One cup of butter is 278 grams. One cup of flour is about 125 grams. What about if that flour is sifted? Is your brown sugar firmly packed in the cup or are there air pockets hidden within? Do you level off your cup measurements so the surface is flat? When you measure liquids do you place your jug or cup on a level surface and bend down to check at eye level? Or are you liberal with quantities and then wonder why things don’t…quite…work? Yeah. That.  Scales eliminate all that ‘creativity’ in the process, and then the ‘creativity’ in the result.

Not all measuring cups are the same, either.

I don’t mean when you grab a mug out of the cupboard and guess that it’s roughly a ‘cup’. Between Europe, the US and Australia, actual measuring cups and spoons vary in size. A lot of overseas brands aren’t Australian standard so you could be incorrectly measuring ingredients. Most of the plastic ones found in supermarkets are ok, but scales means you don’t always have to rely on cups.

Sad times. #cakefail

A post shared by Lyndsey Warnett (@fizzybubbles251) on Apr 3, 2017 at 4:23am PDT

Some recipes are extremely sensitive.

There are tons of recipes that can handle inaccurate measurements. But if you’re trying something sensitive, accuracy is king.

They can help with a uniform result.

How do some kitchen whizzes get biscuits all the same size? Or bread rolls? They weigh each little ball of round dough before they bake it, to ensure they are all the same weight.

Why don’t I bake ANZACS more? Every time I eat them I remember they are the superior biscuit.

A post shared by moniquebowley (@moniquebowley) on Apr 24, 2017 at 7:39pm PDT