MEASURING INGREDIENTS

I know this is might be obvious, but outside baking the measurements are there to guide you, not to follow religiously 🙂 I always season and taste as I go, and in all fairness, there aren’t many ingredients which I’d actually measure when cooking (although don’t worry, scales and measuring cups/spoons have been in heavy use when writing the recipes). For me eyeballing most ingredients is the way to go, but those of you don’t cook that much, that method may not be the best option and you prefer to measure everything. My advice is to definitely measure those ingredients, spices in particular, you are not familiar with so you don’t end up ruining your food by adding too much! Or alternatively, not having the right flavour or texture if you don’t put enough something.

Finnish recipes normally measure ingredients (both wet and dry) in volume, so if the recipe is Finnish, using a decilitre cup as a measurement would be the way go for me. If you have never heard of that measurement before it might be slightly confusing, but it’s actually very easy to understand: 1 decilitre is the same as 100 millilitres, so 1dl = 100ml! Of course I could simply write 100ml instead of 1dl, but I think the latter just often looks neater. Or maybe it’s just me being Finnish, who knows!

The habit of measuring by volume is pretty rooted in me, however the truth is that method is never as accurate as measuring by weight. This is due to the compressibility of the ingredient: a lightly scooped 100ml measuring cup of flour can weigh 55 grams, while a firmly scooped cup can weigh 72 grams. In comparison, when using digital scale 50 grams is always 50 grams. However, if done right, you can also get consistent results using measuring cups: the trick is the ‘dip and sweep’ technique.

Tip: For the ‘dip and sweep’, dip your measuring cup into a bag or container, letting the ingredient overflow from the top. Then level off the top of the cup using a straight edge, such as the side of the bag or a table knife.

When you read my recipes, you may notice that I’m shifting between grams and litres. The reason behind this is that some ingredients/amounts just make more sense in mass, some in volume. As a general rule, dry ingredients are measured in grams, wet ingredients in decilitres or millilitres. (If you prefer one method over the other, you’ll find my unit converter here!)

Finally, sometimes rather than saying how much to put something, I prefer to use more vague cooking terms, such as ‘pinch’ or ‘handful’. For me, it just doesn’t make sense to be incredibly precise when the amounts are super small! Or when the exact measurement is not important. If you are unsure what these notorious measurements mean, see my guide below!

---

ROUGH MEASUREMENTS:

Dash – Liquid measurement, about 1/8 teaspoon

Glug (of oil) – 1 tablespoon or a bit more, enough to coat the pan

Handful – Amount of ingredient that fits in your hand without it being difficult to hold. Of course hand sizes vary a lot, so as an average would be about 100ml measuring cup. However, the exact quantity is not important

Pinch (of salt, sugar etc.) – Amount of ingredient you pick up between your thumb and index finger, would be between 1/8 and 1/16 teaspoon if measured

Splash – Liquid measurement, about ½-1 teaspoon

---