Baking Secret

I love to bake and cook.  However, my life is busy.  With a small child to take care of, a husband to talk to, the phone to answer, and various other family members dropping in and out of the kitchen, measuring for my baking can be quite daunting!  

I know this has happened to other people before; you are measuring out your flour (of which you need a million and two cups EXACTLY) when someone comes up to talk to you and suddenly you've lost count.  Did I just add in four cups or only three?  

Well, you could always use the french method "mise en place" (you know, when you're watching your favorite chef on t.v. and they have all these cute bowls with the ingredients already measured inside each one so all they have to do is dump it in) but for us home cooks who also do their own cleaning, it is not worth it to dirty EVERY single bowl I have just to make baking "easier".

So I created this solution:  I place my measured ingredients into different spaces of the bowl so I can visually count how many tablespoons of baking soda I've already added.  

This has saved me a COUNTLESS number of times!  I've written in what each of the ingredients are so you can see and understand this process as well.  

Voila!

P.S. I actually didn't think this trick was so wonderful until I was baking our family's famous Crazy Cake for my husband's birthday (it's an old recipe on his side of the family too!) and my husband came in, took one look at the bowl and declared me to be a genius!  I love him!  (he happens to be a good cook, however careless in the kitchen and he always loses count or forgets to set the timer almost every time he cooks.  Now if only I had a solution for that dang timer problem we'd be all set)

Erika

**Anjeanette here. Erika, I love this. I'm not sure which impresses me more, the fact that you know what "mise en place" means (I had to look it up. I've seen it forever, but never knew the words for it.) or that you do this. I've done it from time to time, but not necessarily on purpose. I'm totally doing this now;)