Lesson 3: Measuring Up
Hey, welcome back! Can you believe that we are half way through already? Today we are going to learn one of the most important things you will ever need to know in order to make amazing things in the kitchen—something that most grown-ups can’t even do! But by the end of this lesson, you’ll be a pro. Ready? This thing that is so hard for grown ups to do is called, “measuring accurately.” Now, your parents have these things called measuring spoons and measuring cups. Go get them. Got them? Good.
Please read through all of this before even PEEKING at the recipe—hey! I saw you!
The Big Secret
Now, here is the big secret to making everything you make taste fabulous. When you are following a recipe, make sure that when you measure, everything goes right to the top. Not over, not under, just right to the top.
In fact, let’s practice. Take the smallest cup and dip it into some flour. Good. It probably has a bunch still left on top. This is NOT an accurate measurement. This is like wanting to jump onto a box, but instead, you jump so hard that you jump OVER the box. That’s not what you wanted.
Okay, how do we make it better? By taking a butter knife (the dull ones) and scraping it along the top of the cup until there isn’t a speck of flour over the cup. Perfect. And if you don’t get enough in your cup? Simply keep filling it until it heaps up and then level it out. See how easy it is?
Today we are going to measure sticky things like peanut butter, which will be different than measuring flour. For measuring sticky things, smash as much peanut butter as you can into the cup, then level it out. The word LEVEL is very important in baking. Remember trying to hop up onto a box? Too hard and we jump over the box, not hard enough and we fall down.
Let’s stop talking and start doing! This recipe has been adapted from Kathleen Dickerson’s from www.allrecipes.com
