Here’s Why You Should Never Use Cups Instead of Scales When Trying to Bake Homemade Croissants

Making croissants at home is a labor of love, requiring patience, technique, and—most importantly—precision. These golden, flaky pastries owe their perfection to an exact balance of ingredients, a delicate lamination process, and precise measurements. Using cups instead of scales might seem convenient, but it’s a shortcut that could lead you straight to disappointment. Croissants don’t tolerate guesswork; they demand accuracy.

Cups Are Vague, Scales Are Exact

The problem with using cups is their inherent imprecision. Flour can pack differently depending on how you scoop it—one cup of flour can weigh anywhere between 120 and 150 grams depending on factors like humidity or how much you tamp it down. When you’re working with a dough as sensitive as croissant dough, even a 5% variance in flour weight can disrupt the hydration ratio, leading to dense, heavy pastries instead of light, airy layers.

The Butter Dilemma

Butter is the soul of a croissant, providing flavor and creating those irresistible layers. When using cups, measuring butter accurately is next to impossible. Butter sticks vary slightly in weight, and without a scale, you’re left estimating—and croissants don’t thrive on estimates. Too little butter, and your layers won’t puff. Too much butter, and the dough will leak grease during baking, leaving you with sad, soggy croissants.

Hydration Ratios Make or Break the Dough

Croissant dough relies on achieving the perfect balance between flour, water, milk, and yeast. Measuring liquids in cups introduces inconsistencies, as not all “cups” are created equal. A slight misstep here can result in a dough that’s either too sticky to roll out or too dry to laminate properly. Using a scale ensures every milliliter of liquid and every gram of dry ingredients are perfectly accounted for, giving your dough the structural integrity it needs.

Precision Matters for Laminating

Croissant-making involves folding and rolling butter into the dough in a process known as lamination. This technique requires a dough that’s just the right consistency—firm enough to hold its shape but pliable enough to encase the butter without tearing. If your measurements are off, your dough won’t cooperate during lamination, and you’ll lose the layers that make croissants so special. Scales remove the risk of inconsistency, setting you up for lamination success.

Room for Error Shrinks with Complexity

Unlike rustic bread or cookies, croissants don’t leave much room for creative interpretation. When working with such a technical recipe, minor inaccuracies can snowball into major disasters. A little too much flour, slightly less butter, or a touch too much liquid can all result in croissants that are tough, flat, or greasy. Scales eliminate this variability, ensuring every batch starts off on the right foot—or rather, the right gram.

Professional Bakers Use Scales for a Reason

In professional kitchens, scales are non-negotiable. Pastry chefs depend on precise measurements to achieve consistent results, whether they’re making one batch or a hundred. If the pros trust scales to deliver perfect croissants every time, why would you leave yours up to chance? Home baking might be more forgiving in some areas, but when it comes to croissants, you need all the accuracy you can get.

Croissants are as much science as they are art. They rely on yeast fermentation, gluten development, and butter melting at exactly the right time during baking. If your ingredient ratios are even slightly off, these processes can fail. Too much flour can stifle yeast activity, while too little butter can prevent proper layering. Scales allow you to follow the science to the letter, giving you the best shot at bakery-level results.