Weighing or Measuring

Use care when you weigh or measure your ingredients. Doing so helps you achieve consistent flavor and texture. Weighing ingredients is faster and easier, but measuring will produce just as good a cake, providing you measure carefully. Dry ingredients such as flour and sugar should be measured in solid measuring cups, that is, ones with unbroken rims (see Equipment).

Sifting into the measuring cup and leveling off the excess flour with a long metal spatula or knife, without tapping the cup, is the most accurate way to measure flour and will result in the correct amount compared with scooping the cup into the flour or even lightly spooning the flour into the cup and leveling it off, both of which will result in a much greater weight of flour, which will produce a denser and drier cake (see How to Measure Ingredients). If measuring liquids such as water, milk, sticky syrups, and juices, use a measuring cup with a spout designed for measuring liquids and read the volume at eye level from the bottom of the meniscus (the curved upper surface of the liquid). Be sure to set the cup on a solid surface at eye level, not in your hand, which won’t be as level a surface.