ERIN KNOWS BEST

Erin McMurrer is our test kitchen director. She oversees all the recipe testing and development in the test kitchen, but one of her most important jobs is to keep an eye on new test cooks to make sure they’re keeping up with test kitchen standards. And like the proverbial mother with eyes in the back of her head, Erin doesn’t miss much. You’ll often hear her issuing gentle admonitions to new test cooks throughout the day. Where do the test cooks sometimes fall short? Cutting vegetables into perfect dice? Filleting fish properly? Efficiently frenching racks of lamb? Not even close. They sometimes neglect to thoroughly scrape out the contents of their measuring cups. Other than the waste factor, there is a second important reason Erin wants to make sure all the ingredients make it into the mixing bowl—it can often make or break a recipe.

To prove this point, we baked two batches of molasses spice cookies. In one batch we used a rubber spatula to scrape every last bit of molasses (an especially viscous ingredient) from the measuring cup and in the other, we simply poured the molasses from the cup, which left some residue behind (nearly 2 tablespoons!). The results were remarkable. The cookies made with less molasses were less flavorful and they were also dry and cakey as opposed to the cookies using the full amount of molasses, which were richly flavored, moist, and chewy.

So whether you’re a test cook or home cook, heed Erin’s advice and take a few extra minutes to scrape out your measuring cups—it makes a difference.