Don't Use This Hack—Here's How You Should Really Measure Sticky Ingredients With No Mess

I love a good cooking or kitchen hack, but sometimes social media gets it wrong. As a trained chef and recipe developer I know a culinary hack-job when I see it. It’s the kind of hack where important details are disregarded or a few crucial corners are cut. I don’t always blame the person sharing this content, perhaps they don’t know what they’re doing is wrong or maybe they didn’t do their research. Regardless, these posts make me cringe. Mostly because I want you to succeed, not fail, when it comes to cooking. Since several people have shared a recent measuring hack on social media, I felt compelled to set the record straight on why it doesn’t work and what you should do instead.   

What Is the Viral Hack for Measuring Sticky Ingredients?

We all know that measuring honey, molasses and maple syrup can be a bit of a mess—those sticky ingredients cling to your measuring spoon making it hard to get it all out and leaving you with a dirty utensil to clean. The hack aims to solve this sticky situation by taking a measuring cup or spoon and using it to make an indentation into the recipe’s dry ingredients. For example, 1 tablespoon of honey is needed for a cookie recipe. The hack suggests using a clean, dry tablespoon to dip it into the flour mixture, making a “1-tablespoon” indentation, and directly adding the honey into that well. The claim is that this is easier than putting the sticky ingredient in the measuring cup or spoon and trying to scoop it out. But this hack is actually a bit flawed.

Why You Shouldn't Use the Viral Sticky Ingredient Measuring Hack

1. The Measurement Is Inaccurate

To create the indentation, you’re using the outside of the measuring utensil to do it. That size will be different then the measurement of the inside the utensil. Because of this, you’ll likely get more of the sticky ingredient than you actually need. This can cause problems, especially for baked goods, where precise measurements are required for achieving best results.

2. The Sticky Ingredients Are Incorrectly Incorporated

This hack is also flawed because recipes don’t often suggest adding wet ingredients to dry ingredients in this way. Typically wet stays with wet and dry stays with dry until both are brought together. Can you imagine stirring thick, sticky honey into that flour? It won't be evenly distributed throughout the dough or batter and you'll end up with a lot of clumps.

The Best Way To Measure Sticky Ingredients Without the Mess

The best solution to this problem is simple: Spray you measuring utensil with a light coating of nonstick cooking spray before adding in your sticky ingredient. The oil creates a barrier between the vessel and your sticky ingredient, allowing it to glide right out of it, leaving nothing behind. This works great with sticky sweeteners like honey, corn syrup, molasses, and maple syrup, but it also works well on thick ingredients like peanut butter.

Bottom line

This is one hack you can skip. When you need to measure something sticky, grab a little nonstick cooking spray or oil and use it to coat your measuring tool. Add your sticky substance and watch it magically slide right off.