Let’s talk measuring cups. When you shop for measuring cups, there are ones meant for wet ingredients and ones meant for dry ingredients. You’ve probably heard the expression: Baking is a Science.

Many baking recipes require very precise measurements to achieve the chemical reactions needed to produce the correct results. Leave out certain ingredients, add the wrong amounts and your recipe will very likely fail or not turn out properly. This is why it’s important that you own both sets of measuring cups if you plan on baking. Otherwise, your ingredient measurements will likely be off.

Liquid vs. Dry

So why are different sets of measuring cups used?

Measuring dry ingredients

Let’s say your recipe calls for 1/2 cup of all purpose flour. To measure out 1/2 cup of flour, you choose your 1/2 dry measuring cup, fill it to the top with flour, and then level off the top, giving you exactly 1/2 cup.

Now, let’s say you only have a wet measuring cup. You can scoop your flour into your liquid measuring cup until it reaches the 1/2 cup mark. But you can’t level it off. The surface of the flour is uneven, with some parts higher than others. So you don’t really have 1/2 cup. Instead, you have around 1/2 cup.

Here, I weighed both out in grams. In the dry measuring cup, 1/2 cup of all purpose flour weighs 62 grams. But when I used the liquid measuring cup, I got 57 grams. That’s 5 grams difference (about 2 teaspoons). 5 grams may not seem a lot, but it can add up. Let’s say you’re making a cake which requires 3 cups of flour. Now you are off by 30 grams, or about 1/4 cup of flour.

Adding too much flour can cause all sorts of problems including making your baked good too dry, dense, change the texture from chewy to cakey, etc. Similarly, adding too little could cause your batter to be too wet, spread too much, not rise properly, etc.

Measuring liquid ingredients

Now, let’s reverse it. What happens when you try to use a dry measuring cup to measure out the liquid ingredient?

Let’s say your recipe calls for 1/2 cup of water.



Here, I am trying to measure out 1/2 cup of water, which is 4 oz. I put my measuring cup on the scale and poured in the water until it reached 4 oz. It finally does so when the water has reached all the way to the brim of the cup and is just about to spill over. Yes the measurement works, but it will be quite difficult for you to actually get all that water into your recipe without it spilling over. And if you don’t fill the water all the way to the top, then your recipe will be off.

So, while you can technically get a precise measurement by using a dry measuring cup to measure liquids, it will be quite hard for you to add it your recipe without it spilling over, which is why it’s usually better to measure it in a liquid measuring cup, where all you have to do is measure to the line.

Baking Tools

Hopefully, this tutorial has provided you a little more insight as to the importance of having both kinds of measuring cups when you take on a baking project.

For those curious, I own two kinds of liquid measuring cups: OXO Angled Measuring Cups and OXO Nesting Measuring Beaker Set.

The angled measuring cups work great because you don’t need to be at eye level when you are pouring in your ingredient to read the measurement, as the measurements are written on the top and on the side.


I use the beaker ones for smaller measurements. They even provide tablespoon and teaspoon measurements.