Theres nothing wrong with spontaneously exploring flavors and ingredients when whipping up a meal.
Thats part of the fun.
Heres how to reliably measure every ingredient in your grown-up kitchen.
Measuring cups, both wet and dry, are the most common tool for measuring by volume.
Numerous recipes, especially in America, list ingredients by volume instead of by mass.
If youve baked chocolate chip cookies or simmered up some chicken soup, youve measured by volume.
For liquids, fill to the corresponding measurement on the cup.
For flour and other ground or powdered ingredients, the recipe standard is to spoon and level.
(Or measure by mass, but more on that later.)
Use a separate spoon to scoop the flour out of the bag and into the measuring cup.
If you directly scoop your flour, your recipes might be drier or tougher than theyre meant to be.
For best results, choose dry measuring cups that have a clearly defined edge for easy leveling.
Whichever brand you choose, look on both sides of the cup.
You want one that measures in cups, ounces, and milliliters.
Theyre small, affordable, accessible, electronic, and easy to use.
Weighing ingredients tells you how much of the actual ingredient is on the scale.
Weighing ingredients is as accurate and consistent as your scale.
Most of them are pretty darn accurate, and mass is much harder to argue with than volume.
But you dont have to take my word for it.
The difference can be surprising.
If youre making bread, your salt measurement could mean life or death (for the yeast).
After that fun is over, explore the functions.
Jump back and forth between grams, ounces, and pounds.
Definitely take advantage of the tare function.
That lets you measure everything in one bowl.
Measure the flour, tare back to zero, measure the sugar, tare, measure the butter.
No more need for separate bowls.
First of all, hey get a kitchen scale.
Most kitchen scales are only sensitive to a point.
Stainless steel will be your best bet for something sturdy and practical.
The classic design features a round spoon, but the tablespoon size is oftentoo big for most spice jars.
Instead, look for oblong or rectangular spoons, like the ones I listed above.
Outfit your kitchen with these four types of tools and youll be ready to take on any recipe.
