I am all in favor of multi-purpose kitchen equipment.  But some kitchen equipment can’t do double duty.   To get the best results from your recipes, you really need two kinds of measuring cups – dry measuring cups (for flour, sugar, beans, grains, etc.) and liquid measuring cups.

I recently tested the accuracy of using a dry measuring cup for a liquid measurement.  To begin with, it is almost impossible to fill a one cup dry measuring cup with liquid without spilling some over the top.  So most often, we do not fill it to the very top.  I did, however, fill my one cup dry measuring cup with water to the very top and poured it into a glass Pyrex Prepware 2-Cup Glass Measuring Cup (America’s Test Kitchen winner). It was almost 2 tablespoons shy of a cup!  If you are making a cake or a loaf of bread and it calls for 2 cups of some liquid, you could end up almost ¼ cup shy!  In baking, where measurements must be precise and consistent, that is enough to negatively affect a recipe.

The tests done by America’s Test Kitchen are much more scientific, using a lab-grade scale and taking several measurements.  They found two that were the most accurate.  One was the Pyrex glass measuring cup.  It is easy to read the line markings, has a nice wide opening and a good spout for pouring.  It is a cinch to clean.  My complaints are that it is heavy and you have to bend over to see the markings.

The second recommended liquid measuring cup (from America’s Test Kitchen) is the OXO Good Grips 2-Cup Angled Measuring Cup.  It is plastic and therefore, much lighter than the Pyrex.  It has a secondary set of measurement markings inside that can be read from above, so no bending over to look at the side of the cup.  It is not as easy to clean, but I like it more every time I use it.

You really only need one liquid measuring cup and I find I usually reach for the 2-cup size.  Both recommendations are great, but if forced to recommend one I would pick the OXO.

One more thing, to keep from collecting kitchen tools I no longer use because I found something better, I keep a box for Good Will donations handy.  Buy a new tool, donate the old one.  Just sayin’.