Stop Pour Spills by Using a Container With Headroom

The Problem

Pouring from a nearly full container — a brimming measuring cup, a full bowl of batter, a topped-off can — reliably ends with liquid running down the outside and onto the counter. Tip it slightly and the liquid crests the rim with no momentum, clings to the wall of the container, and dribbles down the side instead of falling into the target.

The Technique

1. Before you pour, look at how full the container is. If the liquid takes up more than about half of it, transfer to a container at least twice the liquid's volume.
2. Now pour. With that much headroom, you have to tilt the container much farther over before the liquid reaches the rim.
3. At the steeper angle, the stream leaves the rim cleanly and drops straight down into the target instead of hugging the container wall.

The container's fill level decides the pour angle for you. A full vessel pours at a shallow tilt, where the stream has no separation from the rim; a half-full one forces the steep tilt that makes a clean stream.