Cooking: Measuring Dry Ingredients

A cup of flour, a quarter-cup of sugar, a teaspoon of cinnamon – it sounds like something delicious is happening in the kitchen. But before you can turn that recipe into something tasty, you’ll need to measure those dry ingredients – and you probably want to get those measurements just right.

Here are some tips and tricks to help you get the right amount of flour, sugar, spices, and other dry ingredients – no matter your level of vision.

Most measuring cups and measuring spoons have their sizes printed or engraved on the handle – but the numbers are usually small, and they can be hard to see.

There are several products available that have solved that problem. If buying new equipment is a good option for you, look into measuring cups and spoons that have braille, tactile, or large-print numbers.

You can also find measuring cups and spoons in dark colors, which work well for measuring light ingredients like flour, sugar, and salt. And you can find them in light colors, which are perfect for darker ingredients, like cocoa powder and most herbs and spices.

There are also measuring sets available that use different colors to identify each cup or spoon. So you can remember, for example, that the one-cup measure is orange and the half-cup measure is yellow – or the teaspoon is green and the quarter-teaspoon is blue. Check out the Resources section for more information on products that are designed for cooking with vision loss.

If you want to use the measuring cups and measuring spoons you already have, here are some handy ways you can adapt them for lower vision.

One simple approach is to keep them hooked together. That way, they’re arranged in order, and you can tell which one is the third-cup and which one is the quarter-cup just by comparing where they are.

Another idea is to modify your measuring cups and spoons with marks you can feel. You can create your own bump dots using dimensional paint – such as puffy paint from a craft store – or other paints that dry thick, from an art supply store. Other handy products to use are nail polish, or silicone adhesive.

Add one dot to the handle of the one-cup or one-teaspoon measure, two dots for the half-cup or half-teaspoon, and so on.

Some of these materials hold up better through day-to-day washing than others – but here’s another technique that won’t wash off. You can use a file to make small notches in the handles of metal or plastic cups and spoons. Then simply feel along the edge with your fingernail to count how many notches are there.

If you’re a cook, you’ve probably already learned some techniques for measuring dry ingredients – and it doesn’t take much to adapt these methods to working with low vision. But here are some handy techniques you can use to make it neater and easier.

Storing ingredients in canisters with wide tops is useful for a couple of reasons. With some ingredients, like sugar or salt, you can reach in with your cup or spoon to scoop them up, then shake off the excess over the top of the container.

And for flour, which can pack down too much if you scoop it or shake it, a wide container gives you plenty of room to hold the cup over the top and reach in with a spoon to fill it. Then you can level it off with a knife or your finger, and let the excess fall back into the canister.

If you don’t have wide-mouth canisters, another good way to level your ingredients is to do it over a baking pan or a large bowl. That way you can catch the overflow and pour it back into the container – or simply wash it out when you clean up.

You can also do your leveling over a sheet of waxed paper or parchment paper. When you’re done with each ingredient, fold the paper in half and pour the excess back where it goes.

If you do store your ingredients in canisters, you might want to label them to make it easier to tell things apart. For ideas on labeling, check out Hadley’s series on labels for everyday use.

Some recipes call for ingredients to be weighed – and many cooks say a kitchen scale is the best way to get your measurements right. A talking scale, or one with a large display, comes in handy for all types of ingredients.

Look for a scale with a “tare” or “zero” button. That way you can place a bowl on the scale, set the display back to zero, and then add the ingredient you’re measuring.

Of course, if your scale doesn’t have a zero button, you’ll need to keep track of how much the bowl weighs to make sure you get your measurement right. But a zero button keeps things simple - always a plus in the kitchen. You can even use it between ingredients, and add several ingredients to the same bowl.

As always, if you need more information or you've got your own tips to share, contact a Hadley learning expert. Of course, as with anything new, give yourself time, patience and practice, and you'll get there.