Warming Up To Cups

I know what some of you might be thinking. Perhaps, after all these years, Medic here has finally gone insane and is writing complete and utter bollocks. Or, alternatively, you might be asking yourself whether Medic had a vendetta against cups or something. There’s definitely some insanity in here, but it’s not that bad.

Or maybe it is, and I’m completely insane.

It’s probably the latter.

I should probably start explaining.

It’s about cooking

In this article, I’m talking about using cups as a form of measurement while cooking. Normally, I do one of two things. I either get out a jug with scales written on it (mainly flour, sugar and liquids) or I completely wing it. On the one hand, I grab my measuring jug and properly weigh everything out, as per the instructions on whatever recipe I’m following. Generally in Metric, because I can’t get my head around Imperial measurements.

Alternatively, I just guess. Well, not completely, I estimate the amounts I need for my recipe and go from there. Admittedly, I do this more often with my own recipes, but it’s never exactly consistent, no matter what. If you’re making something like fajitas, then winging it will be fine. But a cake needs proper proportions and adding too much of a certain ingredient can mess things up.

But there is a middle ground to be had here. And that is by measuring things in cups.

Less maths, less thinking, more doing

Take a cup. Any average cup. This is how you now measure things. Using the same cup for all your ingredients not only speeds up measurement but makes measuring a lot easier. And if you have to measure both wet and dry ingredients, all you need to do is get another cup. You don’t need to wash your scales or your measuring jug or whatever. Cups are more consistent, and are much quicker when it comes to getting measurements.

It’s also much easier to reduce or increase quantities, like if you want to make a GIANT cake. For example, if the standard recipe calls for 1 cup of flour and one half a cup of sugar, you can really quickly double the ingredients; two cups of flour and a whole cup of sugar. Much simpler than having to double numeric quantities in your head.

Quicker

Overall though, it’s simply quicker to do than using a measuring jug or anything like that. Not as quick as winging it, but cups do offer way more consistency than pure guesswork.

Really though, I should just stick to using actual measurements. Consistency is better than both cups and the wild guesswork of just winging it. But when I’m in a hurry, it’s so much easier to do things in cups. Especially as I have this nice set of measuring cups that I should use way more often…