Avoid Messy Cake Batter Scooping With An Oily Hack
The best bakers have learned to embrace a messy kitchen, after all, there's no use worrying about spilled flour or eggshells on the counter when you're in the middle of making tasty treats. But it can be super annoying when you're trying to scoop cake batter and it sticks to the spoon, forcing you to spin and shake the spoon over and over until the batter finally stops dripping (or just letting it drip all over the muffin pan and countertop). Luckily, there's an easy trick for preventing messy cake batter scooping: Simply coat your spoon in cooking oil. The oil will help the batter slide right off the spoon and into the muffin/cupcake pan.
Coating your spoon or measuring cup with vegetable oil or a flavorless non-stick cooking spray also makes measuring sticky ingredients so much easier and won't taint the flavor of your cupcakes or muffins. So in addition to cake batter sliding right off, this trick also works for measuring ingredients such as honey, syrup, and caramel. Not only will you prevent stickiness from frustrating you, but your measurements will be more precise since you won't be leaving anything behind — and experts know precision is crucial in baking.
Other ways to scoop cake batter
There are plenty of ways to simplify scooping cake batter into your muffin or cupcake tin to make perfect cupcakes every time. One handy tip is to use an ice cream or cookie scooper to scoop the batter from the bowl to the pan easily. However, this tends to work better with a thicker batter and you'll still want to coat the scoop in oil to prevent the batter from sticking. For thinner batter, try pouring it into a large heavy-duty zip-top storage bag and cutting a hole in one of the corners to pour the batter into the pan. This method also works well with squeeze bottles or piping bags (and with piping bags it can be a thicker batter too).
There are baking tools made specifically for easily portioning batter into muffin/cupcake tins, such as a cake batter funnel you can hold with one hand — and it's useful for pouring pancakes too. You can also try a cake batter dispensing scooper that allows you to scoop the batter and push a sliding button to plunge it into the cupcake/muffin tin. These tips and tools can all help eliminate the mess when scooping batter, making it a breeze to make perfect cupcakes every time.
Tips for measuring sticky ingredients
Home bakers had lots of their own tips to share when responding to a LifeProTips post on Reddit about using oil when measuring sticky ingredients. One person said when making cookies that call for shortening or peanut butter they crack the eggs into the measuring cup and pour them into the mixing bowl, and then measure out the peanut butter in the same cup (without washing it in between). This way, the residue left from the eggs coats the measuring cup and helps the peanut butter slide out of the cup.
Another Redditor advised users to "stop with that nonsense" and just buy an adjustable measuring cup with a plunger that makes it easy to dispense sticky ingredients. Other tips on the thread include using flour or powdered sugar to coat the measuring spoon (if the recipe uses those ingredients), lining the measuring cup with plastic wrap or baking paper, or just using a spatula to scrape it off to prevent wasting oil.
The most accurate way to measure ingredients that many bakers swear by is using a scale. As one Redditor explained, you can put your mixing bowl on the scale and slowly pour in the sticky ingredient until you reach the correct weight. Keep in mind using a scale requires converting ingredient measurements from volume to weight. Another baker in the thread raved about using a scale stating that it speeds up measuring and "cleanup is reduced to almost nothing."