How to Measure Solids in Liquid Foods
In general, measuring techniques for solid and liquid food ingredients are relatively straightforward, and completely separate. Most kitchens have different equipment for measuring different products. However, there's a good technique for hard-to-measure solids based on immersing them in liquid ingredients. Does this Spark an idea?
Instructions
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Measure a liquid ingredient from your recipe in a larger measuring cup. For example, if your recipe calls for 1 cup of oil, fill a 2 cup liquid measure up to the one cup line. Leave it in the cup.
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Mentally add the amount of a difficult-to-measure solid ingredient in your recipe, such as peanut butter, to the amount of the liquid ingredient. For example, if you need 1 cup of oil and 1/2 cup of peanut butter, your total is 1 1/2 cups.
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Scoop, cut or otherwise add pieces of the solid to the pre-measured liquid food ingredient, making sure that the solid items are submerged. Add more until the liquid level rises to the total amount you determined.
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Add both ingredients to your recipe at the appropriate time.
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Tips & Warnings
This technique can also be used for sticky liquids like molasses. Adding them to another liquid may cause more of the molasses to end up in the recipe and less stuck in the measuring cup.
The problem with this technique is that it usually involves adding both the ingredients measured to the recipe at the same time. This isn't necessarily ideal, but it may be better than incorrect measurements. You can mostly separate the wet and dry ingredients out again by pouring off the liquid if you like, although some ingredients may have started to combine. Don't use this technique with easily dissolving solid ingredients such as sugar, since the ingredients may combine chemically and create an inaccurate measurement.
