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Cooking without scales

Hiya - i want to make meat and potato pie for tea but have no scales. Does anyone have any other ways to measure ingredients out? I remember at school the teacher used to say a heaped tablespoon of flour is an ounce ( or something like that) any tips please?

Thanks
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Comments

  • ChocClare
    ChocClare Posts: 1,475 Forumite
    There's some measurements on this website if that helps: http://www.wwrecipes.com/convert.htm
  • troll35
    troll35 Posts: 712 Forumite
    Your teacher was right. I often measure by sight and you get used to the texture. If you haven't used enough flour the mixture will be really claggy/lumpy/sticky when you have rubbed the fat and flour together and the resultant pastry will be quite heavy. If you use too much flour the the rubbed together mixture will be quite fine in texture. The resultant pastry will be quite short/crumbly/flaky (can't think of the right word but you might be able to picture it).
    I would suggest underestimating the flour and then adding more as you rub it in until you get the texture right.
    I like to live in cloud cuckoo land :hello:
  • Pastry is surprisingly forgiving and you've got more leeway than you think.

    The basic rule is half the amount of fat to flour - so 8oz of flour to 4oz fat. You can increase the amount of fat if you want richer pastry - in fact the super-rich mince pie pastry I make at xmas has equal amounts of butter to flour.

    So take a rough guess and experiment - use a cup to measure out the rough quantities. Once you've rubbed the mixture together you can always rub in more flour if it's too fatty.

    Add water a tiny amount at a time (my grandma said a teaspoon at a time but that takes ages) until it's bound together.

    If you end up with too much pastry, you can freeze it raw too.

    Learn from the mistakes of others - you won't live long enough to make them all yourself.
  • withalj
    withalj Posts: 31 Forumite
    Yes, a heaped tablespoon of flour is an ounce, and a cubic inch of butter is an ounce. You need roughly twice as much flour as butter (or whatever fat you're using).

    A really useful tip that I got from a Delia Smith book and that really works is that an easy way to make flaky pastry is to freeze the butter and then grate it into the flour.

    Hope it helps.
    :T
  • FTB83
    FTB83 Posts: 160
    First Anniversary Combo Breaker
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    ChocClare wrote:
    There's some measurements on this website if that helps: http://www.wwrecipes.com/convert.htm


    Awesome, thanks so much for this! I have just moved into my first house and scales are on my list of things to buy, but not got around to it yet. Anyway, I've been wanting to bake a cake for yonks (sometimes this cravings just take me by surprise!) but had no idea of weights etc. This conversion site is absolutely perfect! :T

    Thanks also i wanna save money! for such a useful question, didn't even think to ask!

    FTB83 :D
  • kittiwoz
    kittiwoz Posts: 1,321 Forumite
    As others have said you need twice as much butter as flour but you need to bear in mind when measuring by volume that butter is approximately twice as dense as flour so you need 1 cup flour, 1/4 cup butter etc.

    You'd have to really heap the spoon to get an oz of flour on a tblsp I think. A tbsp is a 15ml and 30g is approximately 1oz so a rounded tbsp of butter is about 1 oz (similar density to water) and two rounded tablespoons of flour (about half the density) is approximately 1oz flour.
  • ariba10
    ariba10 Posts: 5,432
    Combo Breaker First Post First Anniversary
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    You can use the system used in our colonies (America, Australia and New Zealand)
    Cups.
    I used to be indecisive but now I am not sure.
  • troll35
    troll35 Posts: 712 Forumite
    When I was at uni I cooked all sorts of cakes etc using an empty yoghurt pot as my basic measure as I didn't have any scales. If it didn't work out quite right I threw lots of custard over it:-)
    I like to live in cloud cuckoo land :hello:
  • ClaireLR
    ClaireLR Posts: 1,712
    First Anniversary Combo Breaker First Post
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    Hi,

    I have some bananas (4) to use up today before they go off. I was planning on making a cake but then I realised I don't have any scales to weigh my ingredients on!!

    I normally make yoghurt cake and use the empty yoghurt tub to weigh out my other ingredients. I was wondering if anyone knows of a similar recipe to make banana cake or other banana recipe where you use a teacup or similar to measure out ingredients?? I have most other ingredients i.e SR flour (but no plain unfortunately) sugar butter dried fruit etc.

    Any ideas anyone please??

    And also if you have any idea where to buy scales from reasonably cheap I be grateful for that too!!
    Sometimes you have to go through
    the rain to get to the
    rainbow
  • cotsvale
    cotsvale Posts: 397
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    Can't help with that but did you know you can freeze bananas and that they are ok to cook with when you defrost them - they look brown but it saves them going to waste if you don't have time to cook. ....
    Some measuring jugs have ounces on them for dry ingredients - mine does but I've never used it.
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