With cooking, it’s easy to experiment and try a little more of this or a little less of that. But one of the keys to baking is precision. Adding too much flour or too much milk will change the consistency of your cookie or cake and may negatively impact the taste and texture. But it is really easy to measure things the correct way, which should guarantee good results (as long as the recipe is good!)

The first thing to know is that there are two types of measuring cups. The one on the left above is for dry ingredients, the one on the right is for liquids.

To measure flour, start with a dry measuring cup. Stick the whole thing down into your flour container.

Scoop up more than you need.

Don’t pack it down or shake it. Using the flat part of a butter knife, scrape off the extra flour.

You’re done!

You can use this method for most dry ingredients. If there is some reason you can’t stick your measuring cup into your flour container, you can use a spoon to gently place the flour in the cup. Just be sure not to pat it down.

Please note that you will not use this method for measuring brown sugar — unlike flour, it should be packed down.