Chances are, you probably grew up with some sort of kitchen scale in your house. The device has fallen out of fashion lately, with people tending to think of it as old-fashioned, outdated, and just unnecessary. But Deborah Thompson of The Salted Mint explains exactly how you can use this device for the ultimate kitchen hacks.

At Home Bakery

Wanna try making your own tasty crepes, croissants, or baguettes at home? “The kitchen scale is perfect for lazy baking,” says Deborah. “Everything can go in the same bowl — all you have to do is zero the scale before each ingredient addition. When the accuracy and consistency of a measuring cup can be out by as much as 20 percent, using a scale is a no-brainer,” she says. “It’s a dream when you’re measuring something tricky like butter,” Debbie explains, noting that it's “notoriously awkward” to measure properly.

Gourmet Coffee

Love having a freshly brewed cup of coffee that tastes like it came straight from an artisanal cafe, but hate the price tag? That five or six bucks a day for your special coffee can quickly take a major chunk of change out of your wallet. So Deborah Thompson explains how you can use a kitchen scale to make sure your home-brewed coffee tastes like it came straight from the hands of a pro barista.

“When you figure out what you like, a kitchen scale allows you to produce that same delicious cup every single day. Anything else is guesswork,” explains Deborah. “Like baking, precision matters if you are trying to optimize a cup of coffee. You don’t have to measure water beforehand, mess with measuring cups, or worry about your carefully measured water being lost to evaporation in the kettle,” she says. “And it’s easy to read a digital kitchen scale as you’re pouring — you are already looking down.”