Category Friends and family ($30-$100)
Best For Bakers and dieters

I’ve been baking since I was eight years old, but it’s only in the last few years that I’ve baked things that sober people could enjoy. I used to think that I couldn’t bake for the same reason that I have trouble keeping my shoes tied, or maintaining an up-to-date calendar, or remembering your birthday. I am not a precise person; I am a dreamy mess. So the cookies never came out right.

But that was just silly self-doubt stuff. The real reason I couldn’t bake well, no matter how much I practiced or how hard I tried, was because I was measuring by volume. Measuring by volume is crazy! Stop doing it because it doesn’t yield precise results. And baking, whether we like it or not, is about precision. There are correct and incorrect ways to measure by volume—and I know one from the other—but still, it never felt all that accurate to me.

Once I got my first kitchen scale and started converting volume measurements to weight ones, I became fearless. Things don’t always turn out perfectly, but at least it doesn’t feel like a Hail Mary every time I toss the AP flour in the bowl.

If you know someone who loves to bake but doesn’t do it very well, get them a kitchen scale like this Oxo stainless steel number from Sur La Table, available online for $50. And get ready to eat some good cookies.