One thing I dislike about baking is measuring sticky items like shortening and peanut butter. Actually I don’t mind the measuring, it is the clean-up I don’t care for.
Here is an easy solution my mom taught me years ago. Take a glass measuring cup and fill it to the 1 cup line.
Then add your sticky ingredient until it displaces to the water to the measurement you need. So for example, if you needed one cup of shortening, fill the glass with water to the 1 cup mark. Then add shortening until the water reaches the 2 cup mark. If I only needed 3/4 cup I would add shortening until the water reached the 1 3/4 line.
Then either scoop out your ingredient into your bowl, or pour the water out first and then add the measured ingredient to the rest of the recipe. Clear as peanut butter?
This makes clean up a snap because very little if any of the sticky ingredient will be on your measuring cup.
Rebecca C. says
What a great tip! My mother never showed me that one.
Nancy says
Interesting idea! I have never heard of that . I will have to give it a try. Thanks!
Kristy says
What a cool tip! I can’t wait to try it.
Angie @ Many Little Blessings says
I love this Pampered Chef product for sticky stuff: http://www.pamperedchef.com/our_products/catalog/product.jsp?productId=210&categoryCode=KW
It’s totally been worth the money for me!
Laura@HeavenlyHomemakers says
This is such a good idea!! I’ve always hated measuring peanut butter because of the mess and it just never works well. Problem solved!
Sherry says
Great tip! I hate the mess, too! Thank you for sharing this wonderful tip!!
Anna says
What a great idea! Thanks for sharing it. 🙂
Caroline says
This is such a great idea. I have always hated measuring crisco or peanut butter for this very reason. I am going to give this a try.
Thursday's Child says
Thanks for the tip. I’d actually heard that ages ago but never tried it and forgot about it. I’ll have to do a better job of remembering it now. 😉
Michelle says
That’s a great idea!!
Barb J. says
Great idea! My kids and Hubby love peanut butter cookies, but I hate measuring it out. Same goes for recipes that call for Crisco. What a mess! I’m certainly going to try this idea.
Laura says
Thanks for the great tip – I definately use this method from now on.
Sherry says
I was measuring the other day could have used this tip…but I will use it going forward..thanks
pat says
No No No. If the substance is heavier than water, it will displace the same volume of water if it is completely submerged. If the substance is lighter than water, and floats, it will displace its weight in water, not its volume. You’d need 1.1 cups of ice to raise 1 cup of water.
Kimmy Lynch says
Fantastic: thanks so much for the great tip!
Kathy H says
Brilliant!
liz says
It seems that so many of us are looking for an easy way out of how things were fun for me when my mom baked. We all wanted the peanut butter measurer for the leftovers that is now considered a messto many and we also didn’t mind washing the crisco from the measurer. So much have changed from when we grewup. Today is all about convenience.