When You Don’t Have a Measuring Cup: Buy Yogurt!

Faith Durand
Faith DurandSVP of Content
Faith is the SVP of Content at Apartment Therapy Media and Editor-in-Chief of Kitchn, and the author of three cookbooks, including the James Beard Award-winning The Kitchn Cookbook. She lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her husband and two daughters.
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published Aug 3, 2010
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I just saw a tip at Real Simple that reminded me of the time I was cooking in a rental apartment in France, and discovered that there were no measuring tools whatsoever. No scale, no measuring cups. I was making a tart and was not confident enough to judge quantities by sight alone. What to do?

Well, eat a cup of yogurt, of course.

I had a cup of yogurt, and it was clearly marked as holding 180g or something approximate. So I knew exactly how much the cup held. I ate the yogurt, washed the cup, and used it to measure flour and sugar.

Of course, yogurt cups aren’t your only option, if you’re stuck without measuring tools. Soup cans, juice bottles, jam jars — anything that is clearly marked. I’ve used water glasses that I knew held 8 ounces.

Have you ever improvised your measuring tools at home or while on vacation? I have a lot of travel coming up this fall, and I am thinking about slipping my little kitchen scale into my suitcase! But if that doesn’t work out, I know there’s always the yogurt cup to fall back on.

• Read more: New Uses for Everyday Tools at Real Simple

Related: Good Product: Lifetime Measuring Cups

(Image: Antonis Achilleos/Real Simple)

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