Buy $49.95
A trusty food scale for precise cooking and baking measurements
Why I Love This
When my old digital scale died and I sought out a replacement, this model immediately grabbed my attention. The design is attractive and sturdy — two important qualities if you’re going to use it on a daily to weekly basis — it is easy to use and easy to keep clean, and I like that it can stand on its side: I just slip it between my stand mixer and the adjoining wall when I’m done.
It is precise enough that I feel comfortable measuring very small quantities, and I have found the pull-out display to be surprisingly handy. It seems fairly energy-efficient, too: I have had mine for over a year now, I use it daily, and I still haven’t had to change the batteries. And on a non-culinary note, I’ll mention that I use it to weigh outgoing mail and packages, too!
What you should know about the OXO digital scale
Although American recipes traditionally give volume measurements, weight measurements are considerably more reliable: an ounce is an ounce, regardless of how tightly packed, how finely chopped, etc. Chefs have long been on board with this, and serious home cooks and bakers are quickly catching on — as are publishers, who are increasingly including both weight and volume measurements in their cookbooks.
A digital scale is the indispensable tool, of course, and this one, by the excellent manufacturer OXO, has many things going for it:
- No fiddly controls, just four readily accessible buttons.
- The zero button (or tare) allows you to use the bowl or container of your choice to weigh your ingredients, and to reset the scale before adding each successive ingredient so you don’t have a zillion bowls and cups to clean.
- You can switch from ounces and pounds to metric to follow any chef’s or international recipe.
- The stainless steel platform is removable for easy cleaning.
- You can pull out the display when weighing large bowls or plates, so you can actually read what it says!
- The large numbers and (optional) back-lighting makes the display easy to read for all, and in any lighting conditions.
- The scale capacity is 11 pounds (5 kg) and the measurement precision is 1/8 ounce (1 gram).
- The scale is slim for convenient storage, horizontally or vertically.
Buy $49.95
