I use measuring cups, I have different ones for my liquid and dry ingredients. I understand using a kitchen scale can be more precise, but I've never found it to make much of a difference, I find it's really easy to tell if you have enough flour in your mixture just be looking at it and mixing it, and rarely do I need to add any additional. I'm pretty sure you can find websites to convert volume measurements to weightsI'm too used to how I've always done it to change lol.
Sometimes the best recipes happen by accident. Baking is like a chemistry experiment. I discovered that the recipe I started using for chocolate haystack cookies worked best my way, not the recipe's way. I cut 25% of the sugar and added more chocolate. I have no idea why salt would be necessary, so the pinch of salt was omitted. As for the 3 cups of rolled oats... yikes. Adding all three made the cookies come out crumbly. Approximately 2.5 or so did the trick. I just kept adding rolled oats until the mixture was saturated, but not supersaturated. I kept the measurements of butter/margarine, milk, coconut, and vanilla the same as the recipe.
I tried some from a local bakery, and they were awful. The ones I made were not as sweet, but they were extra chocolatey, and as much as people say it's women who are the chocoholics, in my family my dad and grandfather loved them (my grandmother preferred the yogurt-coated cherries and grapes I made). In fact, when I made a batch to take to a potluck, I had to keep them away from my grandfather so he wouldn't get into them (later I made an extra batch so he could have some). It also became a tradition for awhile when I was attending the science fiction conventions that I'd make a batch and take them along. Between my roommates and various visitors, they never lasted longer than Friday night.
Holy &*$%, this reminded me of a huge rant -
It's weird how the language of prohibition finds a way to stick around even when the prohibition itself is repealed, leaving us with a bootlegged vocabulary of slang.
Wow. Way to tease a forum
I totally agree with you for some things, and yes when I'm making souffles (I need to do those again!) I'll use a kitchen scale. But when I'm doing cookies, or cake, or pizza dough, I prefer to just use volumes because it's easier and doesn't make a huge difference to be exact, and I feel those are really more of an art than a science.
