Why Some Recipe Weights Are in Grams and Others in Ounces

Question

I am presently making the Dried Cheery-Chocolate Chunk cookies in the latest issues.  I understand providing both weight measurements and volumes but I have no idea as to why the weights are provided as grams for some ingredients and ounces for others. Why not be consistent and provide all as grams or as ounces (although being outside the USA I would prefer the grams).

Dawn Yanagihara · Accepted Answer

Hi Nancy -
It appears you caught a small error in the recipe. The weight for the dried cherries should have been expressed in grams, not ounces -- 168 grams, if I did the calculations correctly (math is not my forte).
But when it comes to chocolate, the Milk Street standard is to express weight in ounces because here in the U.S., package labels lead with avoirdupois weight and list metric weight in parentheses. Plus, American cooks, myself included, tend to have an easier time thinking in ounces/pounds rather than in metric weight. Nonetheless, your point is well taken, and the next time chocolate comes up in a recipe, we'll reconsider our approach. Perhaps offering both avoirdupois and metric weights is the way to go.
Happy baking!
Dawn Yanagihara, Recipe Editor

Why Some Recipe Weights Are in Grams and Others in Ounces

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