Quick Tip: Measure Messy Ingredients Inside the Bag

This one is probably no surprise to most of you, but for me, it was a real revelation. I’ve always hated measuring ingredients like brown sugar and powder sugar because it seems so messy. And then I realized: why not measure right inside the bag?

I open up a big hole in the bag and fit my whole measuring cup inside. I scoop up some of the the sugar, and with the cup still inside the bag, I use my fingers to compress it down and level it off right through the plastic.

There’s no awkward ferrying of sugar to cup one careful spoonful at a time. I don’t raise any clouds of sugar dust trying to pour it out. Everything stays neat and tidy. I do this for brown sugar and powder sugar most of all, but I do it also when measuring rice, lentils, popcorn, and anything that has potential to scatter and go everywhere.

Like I said, maybe this is no revelation to you, but it’s changed my whole perspective on baking!

What other tips do you have for measuring potentially messy ingredients like these?

(Image: Emma Christensen)

Comments (14)

Do this with brown sugar and granulated sugar all the time.

I wouldn't "pack" powdered sugar though. You will end up with more sugar and everything will taste sweet. You should sift it and measure if it is lumpy.

Often the tidiest way to measure messy ingredients is to use a scale instead of measuring cups. It's more accurate, too.

Every recipe I've ever seen that calls for brown sugar says to pack it. This is the first time I've ever seen anyone recommend sifting it, and I can't even imagine how you'd go about doing so.

I keep most of my ingredients in a painstakingly assembled collection of jars and canisters, because I'm rather paranoid about critters getting into bags, but I would never have dreamed of measuring ingredients by spooning them from the container to the measuring cup!

This works great for brown sugar, but definitely don't do it for flour. Still spoon that one or else you might end up with a dense, dry baked item.

I always do this for brown sugar or anything else that is OK to pack. It works great!

I always do this for brown sugar - very useful and less messy.

@ShellyIN, @Mochene was talking about sifting powdered sugar.

Ah! Reading comprehension fail! And the sad part is, I had to re-read it a couple more times before I saw "powdered."

... I... I'm not sure how many different ways a person could get a cup of sugar out of a bag.

I don't pack or sift anything. Maybe I am just lucky but all of my recipes turn out just fine.

I've always done this. I measure ingredients inside and over canisters of ingredients too. Why would you ever do it another way?

I always do this. Makes sense.

btw to the people who talked about flour above,I scoop flour out of the container, it doesn't end up 'packed', no more so that putting flour in any other way.