Cooking is an art and baking is a science. While there are exceptions to this rule, for the most part it does reign true. Baked goods are most commonly heated at a specific temperature creating a chemical reaction of precisely measured ingredients. In the end, this results in your delicious finished baked good. This makes adding the correct amount of ingredients very important in order to achieve the desired outcome. Ensuring the proper amount of flour is used in baking recipes is crucial.
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When it comes to measuring flour, there can be a lot of discrepancy depending on how gather the flour. If you reach in and scoop flour into your measuring cup, you will get more flour than when you spoon and level (I'll explain this method below). When you scoop out the flower with the measuring cup directly, it will pack down the flower and you will get more flour than intended. In the end, using recipes that give you measurements in grams will be the most accurate and have the greatest chance for a great baking outcome.
Spoon & Level
The spoon and level method (aka as scoop and level or spooning method) is probably the most commonly used method by bakers. The process is simple, use a spoon to gently spoon flour into your measuring cup. Fill up the measuring cup until the flour is overflowing. Use the back of a knife or a utensil with a flat edge and gently scrape the excess flour off. It's best to do this over a bowl or the flour bag itself (don't waste that extra flour)!
King Arthur Flour accounts for one cup of flour as 120 grams while Joy of Baking states 130 grams for all purpose flour. When you scoop and level you generally get an average weight right around these numbers. It depends how much you fluff or sift your flour prior. If you don't have access to a food scale, this is the best method to use (unless your recipe states otherwise).
Kitchen Scale
Food Scales by far are the most accurate way to measure ingredients and get consistent results. They are a pretty reasonable investment if you like to bake and very easy to use. You will simply place your mixing bowl on the scale and then tare it. Tarring is zeroing it out so the recipe isn't taking into account the weight of the bowl. You can continue to tare your scale between ingredients. This saves you on washing dishes too as you don't need to use a bunch of different sized measuring cups!
Whether you spoon and level your flour or measure it with a digital scale, you should get a similar flour measurement leading to a delicious baked good.
