Five years ago, I moved into an apartment with a skylight over the kitchen and built-in spice shelves along a wall and decided to overhaul my mess of spice bottles and bags to make them fitting for such a pretty display. I looked for containers that would be uniform, have a wide mouth (to easily dip measuring spoons or fingers for a “pinch” in), were opaque (so that the sunlight wouldn’t damage the spices over time) and wouldn’t cost a fortune to buy in the quantity I needed.

I ended up with 4 ounce tins and affixed them with Avery 5160 Mailing Labels that I’d printed from a Microsoft Word document and all was right and pretty in my orderly, well-spiced world. Until it wasn’t. Four and a half years later, there were problems. Paper labels were peeling at corners, many were smudged but that was the least of the problems… after five years of catching kitchen grease and bits of powders in their rims, a few were grimed shut leading to many expletives when I needed ginger, stat for a recipe and the bleeping lid wouldn’t come off. Some tins had rusted slightly over repeated washings without wiping them dry.

I was not pleased, as I’d hoped those tins would be a once-in-a-lifetime investment, and begrudgingly began seeking out a new solution. Many months later, I found one in these wee bottles.

Pros: Yes, they’re very pretty. They’re also 4.5 ounces each (which means that they will hold the contents of most spice bottles), have a wide mouth and although the pictures don’t make this clear, they are completely airtight (the tins were not). There is a silicon rim along the inside of the lid that snaps shut when completely closed, so wonderfully tight that I’d recommend you open a full bottle of powder over the sink, just in case the vacuum created makes a mess. Because they’re glass, they’ll never warp or rust and will always wash up shiny, which will please me immensely. They’re made by a company named Libbey Vibe, and sold through Amazon and Target (and Crate and Barrel, but they charge more). I’ve affixed them with Avery 18695 Clear Return Address Labels (font: Bell Gothic, Size 16) that are remarkably smudge proof, easy to remove (with no residual grime) and re-affix should they land crooked, which all of mine did. For extra “smudge protection” you could cover them with a second blank clear label.

A Tangentially Related Pro: These jars also come in different sizes, all the way up to 82 ounces if you’re looking to pretty up your whole pantry, not just your spices.

Cons: I’m having a hard time getting the labels around the curve of the bottle exactly flat, there are bubbles. The difference between now and five years ago? It barely bothers me. A bigger issue is that clear jars don’t protect the spices from sunlight, which I will either decide to live with, keep them in the cabinet, or put them out on shelves with a kind of makeshift curtain draped over them. Finally, they’re a little less space efficient as I wouldn’t advise stacking them more than two high (I’d stack the tins in threes, sometimes fours) as it gets too wobbly.

Need even more inspiration? Check out David Lebovitz’s suggested uses for extra egg whites. Now get whisking!

There are factors beyond temperature too. A greased cookie sheet promotes spreading; one tip is to flour it after you grease it to hinder spread, or to use silicone paper or a Silpat mat instead. Because sugar liquefies as it is heated, a more sugary cookie (with less flour and/or fat in it) is more likely to spread than one with a lower proportion of sugar. When a recipe says to “cream” your butter and sugar together, just beat it long enough to combine the ingredients — about 30 seconds on an electric or stand mixer, says David Lebovitz — so you do not whip too much air into your cookies, causing too much expansion as the air bubbles steam in the oven. (With cakes, there’s no such limit on airiness.) Finally, at higher altitudes, cookies with baking soda in them tend to spread more.

Lastly, it is worth noting that butter, which melts at your body’s temperature and is nearly one-fifth water, spreads more than margarine, and both spread more than shortening. Now, all cookie recipes on Smitten Kitchen are all-butter (because I like butter’s melt-in-your-mouth feel and flavor above all else), so making sure that your butter, dough and baking sheets aren’t too warm is especially key.