Kitchen scales forfoolproof baking
This kitchen scales can teach you how to bake perfect Drop scones
Ipicked up a charming book last month called Tea With Jane Austen by food historian Pen Vogler. Inspired by the food in Austen’s novels and letters it very quickly nudges you towards baking things like Sally Lunn buns, worthy of a Mansfield Park cream tea. I’d also just got a Drop Connected Kitchen Scale, a Bluetooth device for iOS. Perfect timing.
Drop is an Irish company whose first foray into connected kitchen tech is smaller than a traditional scales – an inch tall and measuring 5.5 x 6.5 inches square. The base is silicone and it has a stylish red non-slip silicone top, to ensure mixing bowls or dishes stay in place. For such a small, light device it’s sturdy, can handle up to 6kg and is accurate to a gramme.
It’s powered by a small replaceable battery – on the underside – which should last about a year. You need to download the Drop Scale app – free on Apple’s app store – to set it up. It’s a simple process that takes just a few minutes. You can choose grams or ounces and Celsius or Fahrenheit as your measurements.
It has hundreds of recipes for everything from cocktails to burgers but it is firmly focused on baking. Recipes are easily searchable and have star ratings from other Drop owners. Blueberry buttermilk scones caught my eye and the app immediately displayed all the recipe details, servings, prep time, and calories per serving.
It then listed the equipment I’d need and the ingredients. Next, basic instructions appeared on my iPad screen, so I pre-heated the oven and lined a baking tray with parchment paper. The app then walked me through adding the ingredients. You can see the weighing process via graphics on the app showing you how much has been added and how much more is to go. After each ingredient is added, you can tap the Done button on the app or press the button on the scales to move on. The app made the whole process until I was turning out the mixture and cutting the scones seem foolproof.
As I slid the baking tray of neatly trimmed, enticingly golden brown scones out of the oven 22 minutes later, I felt quite pleased with myself.
The app will adapt a recipe to the quantity of ingredients you have, or you can reduce the number of servings at the start of the process if you don’t need the larger quantity.
At €100 this is not an impulse purchase but it’s a well made, fun, useful and stylish kitchen device. The app could do with even more recipes but it can select recipes by meal or diet type and the maker is testing a new feature, Drop Creator, to allow users to upload their own recipes. Blueberry scone anyone?