I'm a proponent of the "fluff and scoop" school of flour measuring--I use the measuring cup to fluff and aerate the flour in the canister, scoop up the flour and sweep off the excess with a knife or spatula. With the exception of cake flour, with today's milling techniques, flour doesn't clump as much as it did years ago and really doesn't need to be sifted. As for mixing dry ingredients, I whisk them together--try both sifting and whisking flour and cocoa together and you'd be amazed how much faster and more thorough whisking is.

Catherineap, I'm glad you said that. I don't consider myself a baker, but I bake fairly often and with good results, and I almost always interpret "sift" as "whisk" in recpies. It makes me feel like a bad baker, but it's so much quicker, less messy, and just as effective.

I have a short but very wide container to store my flour (it was originally a small bucket of muffin batter from Costco). If I need to measure sifted flour, I can scoop it into the seive and sift it right over the measuring cup with the excess falling neatly back into the flour container.

I find I don't come across too many recipes that call for measuring sifted flour. My preferred method for measuring anything is using my $15 digital scale from Canadian Tire (you could also get cheap ones at any kitchen product store). I have a chart posted on my fridge that has conversions of measurements to weights of many common ingredients. I feel that this makes preparing ingredients so much faster and cuts down on having to constantly wipe out measuring cups to use on the next ingredient. Also, after making the conversions so many times I practically know them by heart!

So glad that most British recipes seem to request flour by weight.

Definitely a fan of weighing flour. I invested in a small $20 scale and it had served me very well. It's not all that accurate, but it really doesn't need to be for the decent amount of meats and flour I measure.

I use this method for measuring flour: http://youtu.be/NHAGDuaUzqo

Especially with breads, I think it is important to note that the "dip and scoop" method can often add anywhere from 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup of flour extra, leading to a terribly dry loaf. Using the method in the video, filling the cup, leveling off, provides an equal balance between a heavy scoop of flour or something that is too light.

Naturally, I prefer a scale, but this is a good work-around when you don't have one.

I almost never sift flour. I do run a whisk through it, but that's it.

I use my flour scoop to gently pour the flour into my measuring cup. But I love my $8 scale (DX extreme). So much faster, too.

This is how you are properly supposed to measure flour in a dry cup measure according to a home economist -- spoon in, and carefully level off.

http://www.citytv.com/cityline/food/article/196268--home-ec-101-with-mairlyn-smith

And yes, European recipes with weighted measures are much more reliable than American ones which use volumetric measures. Scales are cheap, but not all recipes are written for them.

Another whisk-er here. I just haven't figured out a sifting method that doesn't create a mess, and whisking seems to be adequate in most cases.

I am 100% with Catherineap. I do the exact same thing that she mentioned of fluffing it in the canister before measuring and then leveling it off with a knife. I confess I had not done that before when, a few years ago, I was watching TV and saw someone doing it and that was enough to make me try it the very next time.

I'm a stir, scoop, then scrape kinda guy; but I also dont bake too much.
I'd be interested in seeing some raw numbers on the topic, like a few people using their "tried and true" methods of measuring with cups and then weighing with a scale.
I've had baked goods come out amazing, and some with not so stellar results. With the ones that do I'm probably measuring the same way the author did. With the items not turning out I'm probably measuring them the way they're not.

I just did an experiment wherein I weighed 1 measured cup of flour using the fluff and scoop method a few times, and then I did the same but I sifted the flour into the measuring cup and levelled it off. The average weights were:

Fluff and scoop method, 1 cup: 129 grams
Sifting method, 1 cup: 126 grams

So I'm now convinced that whichever way you do it, it doesn't really matter. If I were using a measuring cup, I'd fluff and scoop and then whisk it. That said, I'm still a proponent of weighing the flour, and the concensus I've found is that 1 cup of AP flour=128 grams. Now I know that I can use the same weight whether the recipe says sifted or not.

Regardless of what the recipe says you measure & then sift, same applies to sugar, corn flour, Self Raising or Plain Flour - I back this statement up with several years of experience at baking. The only time you need to think about the exact quantities would be when you're measuring brown sugar - light packed or packed - brown sugar should always be at least packed lightly into the measuring cup.