Why You Should Bake By Weight Instead of Volume

Dec 18

Dec 18 Why You Should Bake By Weight Instead of Volume

Three reasons. Here they are, in order of importance:

Reason 1: Fewer dishes.

I despise—despise—doing dishes. I don’t have a dishwasher, but even if I did, there is no way around the fact that measuring by weight creates ten times fewer dishes, and that that is a very, very good thing.

Let’s say you’re making cookies, for example. Normally, you’d measure each ingredient using a different measuring cup or spoon, dump them all into a big bowl, and then painstakingly wash every single stupid spoon. But, in the paradise called Measuring By Weight, you just put it all into one bowl. No measuring cups or spoons. One thing to wash. Boom.

Reason 2: It’s more accurate.

But not in, like, a crazy perfectionist way. In a very practical, you-will-get-more-delicious-baked-goods kind of way. I’ll explain.

Let’s take those cookies again: My mother’s chocolate chip cookies were, without exception, dry, stodgy, high-piled mounds of chalk, dotted with delicious chips. (Sorry, Mom.) When I started making cookies of my own, I used the same back-of-the-Tollhouse-bag recipe, and my cookies came out the same way. It makes sense that two cooks using the same recipe would make the same kind of crappy chocolate chip cookies, except that I knew other kids’ mothers made the Tollhouse recipe, too, and their cookies came out flat, with chewy edges and gooey centers, or even crisp and lacy, with a paper-thin edge.

So, how did all our households produce such different cookies from the same classic recipe? Well, my mother packed the flour (and the baking soda, and the baking powder) into the measuring cups and spoons, jamming as much dryness as possible into those little cups. Then, that jammed dryness went directly into our cookie batter. And guess who taught me how to measure stuff for baking? Yep, my mother. At some other household, perhaps the common practice was to sift the flour, and toss it lightly into the measuring cups. At still another household, perhaps they spooned it in, draping in floury layers.

The point is: If you measure by volume, there is an enormous margin for error. And that margin is the difference between stodgy chalk-cookies, and chewy, gooey delights. Measuring by weight eradicates that issue. If the recipe calls for a certain amount of flour, you put that amount of flour into the batter, no problem. (Oh, and did I mention that you can just add it to the big bowl with all the other ingredients so you only have to wash one dish?!?!)

Reason 3: It’s faster.

Sure, I love to spend long, lingering Saturdays baking my heart out (seriously, I do), but sometimes life is busy. And the busiest days are the days when it’s most precious to come home to fresh bread or cookies or cake. Shaving a few minutes off a baking project means more time to relax at the end of a long day. And relaxing is better with fresh-baked cookies and milk.