Wait… there’s a difference between dry and wet measure?
Last night during my cinnamon roll class, I talked, as I always do, about measuring. I have strong feelings about the best way to measure ingredients.
In culinary school, we were taught to scale or weigh everything. Even the smallest, lightest ingredients were measured precisely to build a deep understanding of quantity. That foundation mattered.
Then I entered the real world, the restaurant world, and it was a quick, rude awakening. Suddenly, it was a mix of scales and American measuring: dry cups, liquid cups, intuition, speed. In my first year working in pastry at Michael’s in Santa Monica, I made a lot of mistakes. And I had to learn quickly how to fix them, because dinner service was always right around the corner.
Here’s the kicker: you’re expected to measure exactly, and also somehow know how to make it work without being exact.
It was exhausting. I was burning the candle at both ends and didn’t yet have the experience to make it feel easy.
Eventually after taking a break from the restaurant world and exploring different options, I swung the other direction. I boycotted proper measuring and embraced cooking by feel, adding a little of this, a little of that.
Then came a defining moment.
I was developing a brownie recipe for a competition. I was confident, culinary school, restaurant experience, intuition, it all felt like enough. But baking has a humbling way of testing you. You can’t truly know if a recipe works until it’s baked, and that takes time, time I didn’t have.
I baked the brownies the same day I planned to submit them (which I now know is the worst idea). They came out delicious, but completely wrong. Gooey. Flat. Not brownies.
In a moment of quick thinking, I cut them with a cookie cutter and renamed them: pistachio fudge.
I won.
To this day, I’m convinced that if I had called them brownies, I wouldn’t have. That moment changed everything. It showed me how much I still had to learn about writing recipes, really writing them.
True to form, I learned the only way I know how, by diving in.
I spent an entire winter and spring testing recipes with two interns by my side, working toward my first cookbook. The following year, I had the opportunity to write recipes for Traditional Home magazine, and once again, I had to return to exact measurement.
Now, after a decade of recipe writing, I’ve landed in a different place. A place of balance. Of respect for precision, and for intuition.
And most importantly, a place of compassion.
For my students who walk through my door and admit they don’t know the difference between wet and dry measuring.
And for those of you who don’t admit it.
I see you. And unfortunately yes wet and dry measure are different and you need both to conquer your cooking and baking missteps.
