What does "spooned and leveled" mean? I'm looking at a recipe that lists the following as an ingredient:


  1 cup all-purpose flour (spooned and
  leveled)


What exactly does this mean? Is this literal - i.e. spoon it into the measuring cup and level off? If so, why does it matter if it's "spooned" or not?
The easiest way to measure a cup of flour is of course to take the measuring cup, plunge it into your bag of flour and just lift up a spoonful. The problem with that is that the plunging and lifting will compress the flour inside the cup and actually get you more flour than you wanted. If you spoon the flour into the measuring cup you minimize the compression and will get a more accurate measurement.