Switched from measuring cups to a $22 kitchen scale and my cookies finally stopped spreading
I bake cookies pretty much every weekend and for two years I used the same set of measuring cups my mom gave me. My chocolate chip cookies always came out flat and greasy no matter what I did. I blamed the butter, the oven, the pan, everything. Then my sister, who works at a bakery in Portland, told me she weighs everything and never uses cups. She said one cup of flour can weigh anywhere from 4 to 6 ounces depending on how you scoop it, which is a huge difference when a recipe needs precision. I grabbed a cheap digital scale off Amazon for $22 and started weighing my flour at 125 grams per cup. First batch came out thick, chewy, and they held their shape in the oven instead of melting into a puddle. I tested it three more times that week with the same recipe and got the same result every time. The scoop and level method was giving me way more flour than I needed, which dried out the dough and made the butter pool up. If you have been fighting flat cookies and blaming your recipe, try weighing your flour once. Has anyone else made the switch to grams and noticed a big difference in other baked stuff like bread or pie crust?