In the world of cooking and baking, accurate measurement of ingredients is vital. This can greatly affect the taste, consistency, and overall presentation of the dish. Although it is easy to follow a recipe to a tee, the concern is how to accurately scale, half, and double when needed.
When you need to cook for twice as many people, you will end up thinking what is ⅔ cups doubled. The same can happen when you are called to use half of all ingredients on the recipe. Thankfully, this article will teach you how, plus discuss the importance of accurate measurements.
Quantity Measuring Chart
For you to have a more constructive idea on how to scale a recipe but maintain the right measures. Here is a quantity measuring chart that you can refer to.
Tips for Accurate Measurement
There had been a misconception about cooking saying that real cooks or chefs do not measure ingredients. Here are a few recommendations you can use for accurate measurement.
1. Invest in proper measuring cups and spoons.
In order for you to accurately measure your ingredients, you will need the proper measuring tools. One common mistake is using regular cups and spoons as measuring tools for ingredients.
2. Use dry and liquid measuring cups accordingly.
Measuring dry and liquid ingredients can be a little tricky and for these, you would need the appropriate tool that would best suit each one. Dry measuring cups are specifically designed to measure dry ingredients only. The same can be said for liquid ingredients. So, make sure that you have the measuring tool for each one.
3. Read and follow the recipe’s instructions appropriately.
Recipes are made to ease of understanding and following the process of cooking a specific dish. It also indicates the ingredients that are needed and the amount required. Make sure that you read and follow what is indicated in the recipe when it comes to ingredient measurements.
4. Read liquid measurements from the side.
Unlike dry ingredients, there is a specific way of reading the measurements for liquid ingredients. Much like what we have learned from chemistry class, you need to read it from the side where the bottom of the meniscus is. The meniscus is the curved shape at the top of liquids caused by surface tension.
5. Consider using a digital scale.
It is one thing that you properly use measuring cups and spoons to measure ingredients accurately, it another thing when you add a kitchen scale to the mix. Aside from manually measuring ingredients using measuring cups and spoons, using a kitchen scale is another way to ensure the accuracy of the measurements.
Kitchen scales can either be digital or mechanical. When using a digital scale, you need to first place a bowl and zero it to account for its weight. Afterward, use the same to scale or weigh your ingredients.
On the other hand, if you are using a mechanical scale, you need to place a bowl first on the scale and set the dial hand to zero. Afterward, you can proceed to weighing and measuring your ingredient into the bowl.
Finally, using a kitchen scale not only helps to achieve accuracy in measuring ingredients but also helps to lessen the mess in the kitchen. Using a kitchen scale will require less usage of other measuring tools than can add to the clean-up afterward.
You can put away other measuring tools and just use a bowl and kitchen scale. Clean-up is also easier and requires wiping the kitchen scale down after usage.
