Mmmmmmm... Gluten

Chocolate chip cookies are a staple of my lifestyle.  My family recipe makes the best, chewiest, most delicious cookies I've had anywhere.  I've made batches using this recipe hundreds of times, so I was a little perplexed when one of my engineers walked into the kitchen and announced, "You're doing that wrong."

"Doing what wrong?  I'm making cookies!"
"Measuring the flour."

I had in fact been measuring the flour.  Flour is a very important thing in baking.  It contains gluten, which binds the cookie or cake or bread together.  Without enough flour your baked goods might fall, or deflate when you take them out of the oven.  If, however, you add too much flour whatever you're making will turn out tough and dry because of the long chains of gluten that are contained in the flour.  I know all this because my information junkie friends told me so.

"I know all about flour, you've told me before." I snapped.  I mean really, if he thought he was getting any cookies when I was done he'd better be a little bit more supportive of my work.  Besides I had been measuring it very carefully.  I glanced down at the perfectly smooth and level surface on flour in my measuring cup, and then glared up at the engineer trespassing in my kitchen.

"But you're still measuring it wrong.  The flour particles are very light and squishy so they're easy to compact, but the recipes are designed using non-compacted flour.  If you measure by volume it's likely that you're compacting the flour as you measure it and are therefore getting too much gluten in your dough. The only right way to measure flour is by weight, not by volume."  He then wandered back out of the kitchen feeling very good about himself.  He felt he had saved the cookies.  Well, if he wanted to buy me a fancy kitchen scale, and find me some more space in my kitchen to store it he was welcome to.  In the meantime he can forget about eating any of my cookies unless he washes the dishes.