On May 22, 1:12�pm, weaver615 > wrote:
> My Aunt taught me this trick many years ago. If you ever need to get
> the right amount of Shortening for say...Your home made Pie Crust,
> here is a simple yet easy way to do it.
>
> Most Pie Crust recipes call for 1/2 cup of shortening. If you don't
> have a measuring cup, or you are just trying to save a little time,
> you can take a 1 cup measuring cup and fill it to the 1/2 cup line
> with COLD water, then you can spoon in your shortening, butter, or
> margerine until the water level reaches the 1 cup line. This will give
> you the 1/2 of shortening, butter or margerine that you need for your
> recipe. Just remember to use COLD water as warm water will melt what
> ever it is you are trying to measure.
>
> I use this method everytime I bake as it is faster and cuts down on
> the dirty dishes I have when I am through baking. Try it and let me
> know what YOU think.

That's a trick like how people who think touching raw chicken is
yooky, so they buy parts.

Volume is not the same for all shortening weights, so your method is
not very accurate.. plus it's messy and time consuming.. and the
larger the amount the more inaccurate.

Experienced cooks can pretty accurately eyeball solid shortenings..
especially since shortening is sold in standard packages; sticks,
cans... even a chimpanzee can be trained to eyeball a 1/4 or 1/2 pound
of crisco from a 1 pound can. In commercial kitchens recipes are
based on commercial sized packages, ie. 5, 10, 30 pound buckets of
shortening... they simply use the entire container of each
ingredient... how do yoose think package sizes came to be, it was not
by accident. Not nearly as much precision measuring goes on in
commercial kitchens as one may think, or even home kitchens, not when
the cook is experienced. Actually experienced cooks/bakers can very
accurately measure ingredients, and with exquisitely accurate
consistancy, while blind folded and with no other tools but their bare
hands... you need to observe a professional baker scale muffin batter
into pans, they can actually fill muffin tins by scooping with their
hands and faster than the eye can see, I kid you not, I can, all day,
by the thousands, as fast as you can feed me greased muffin tins... I
can fill muffin tins faster than any ten of you can grease those
tins... and that's with one hand, if I use both hands there probably
won't be enough room in the kitchen to hold enough of yoose to keep
up.