Measuring Soft Margarine Accurately for Easy Vegan Baking

Scooping Vegan Butter or margarine out of a tub isn't that hard. What is hard is making sure the vegan butter is exactly the right quantity for your recipe. You can always melt the chunks then pour the margarine into a measuring cup. Sometimes you want to use unmelted or soft vegan butter so in these cases melting it is not an option. If you're measuring by the chunks you've scooped out with a spoon and compressed into a measuring cup you can be off by as much as a couple Tablespoons. When making things like pie crusts this can be the difference between success or failure.

Archimedes supposedly famously exclaimed Eureka! when he was taking a bath and noticed the water level rose as he got further into the tub. He realized that the volume of water displaced must be equal to the volume of the part of his body he had submerged. He was reportedly so excited to tell everyone about this discovery that he ran throughout the streets naked. This same principle can be used when measuring vegan butter. Please don't run naked in the streets with sheer excitement when you realize how easy and accurate it is.

1)
Get a large, transparent 4 cup capacity measuring cup. Fill the measuring cup with exactly two cups of cold water. Note that the 2 cup water line is your reference for zero cups of margarine.



2)
Scoop out your margarine and put it in the water filled measuring cup. Make sure that no margarine chunks are above the water line. Keep doing this until the water level rises to the level that indicates your desired amount. For example, if you are interested in measuring 1/3 cup margarine, place enough margarine scoops into the cup until the water level gets to 2 1/3 cups. 

3)
Drain off the water and add the margarine to the recipe as indicated.