Basic Cooking Instructions

In our community, we started a 4H club. I am in the food/cooking group. The other day, we had our first meeting and lesson. So, the lesson was about the basics of measuring food properly. 


When I was taking notes in the meeting, I though wouldn't this be a great blog- to do posts of  lessons I've learned from in 4H. 


Hope you enjoy.

The 2 kinds of measuring are solid/dry measuring and liquid measuring.

Measuring Flour – Before measuring, fluff up the flour with a spoon. Take your measuring cup and gently spoon in amount till over flowing. Then level with strait edge such as strait edge. Do not shake or tap the cup of flour because the tiny particles compact together and decrease the amount (not literally). If you do shake or tap after leveled do not be tempted to add more, therefor you added too much.  

When you need finer flour you sift it through a sifter.

Too much flour leads to a heavier out come than needed and desired. 

Measuring Brown Sugar – When you are reading/making a recipe, and it calls for brown sugar, and when it does not say “pack” or “pack lightly”, do not pack the sugar. If there are other recipes that say, “pack” or “pack lightly”, please do so.

Measuring Sugar – Because Sugar is so sweet, you do not need the full amount of sugar indicated in the recipe,so you can cut back the amount needed. Sugar particles (crystals), are a lot bigger than tiny flour particles so it does not compact like flour 


Liquid Measuring – When measuring liquids, place a measuring cup on a solid and level area. Take your container of “liquid” and get down to eye level so you know exactly where your line of “liquid” is. That line is called the meniscus (the surface tension). Pour gently in to the measuring cup. Once you have approximately poured the amount of “liquid” needed, look at the bottom of the meniscus (the flat part of the line). The line needs to exactly on the measuring line.

Thanks for reading!