measurements; is it just me?

saving-grace

I have a very nice set of stainless steel measuring cups (saw them in TK Maxx and thought they might come in handy).
However I must admit I tend to ignore recipes that use cups. There are so many great recipes out there why bother with ones where I'm not comfortable with the measurements?

AussieLass

Sorry

Most of my recipes are in metric or cups. I usually try and convert into cups when posting recipes on here as I thought it was easier for everyone. I just thought your measuring cups would have a cup, 1/2 cup, etc on the side as well as your ounces. Ours has the cup measurement & the metric one.

nikibella

Hi,
if you want the exact conversions (both in metric and in oz.) of all measurements in cups check this website https://www.cookingforengineers.com

thriftlady_2

All cookshops will sell you a set of cup measures. They aren't expensive.

I used to really hate them, especially recipes which called for a cup of chopped carrots for example - why not just 'one chopped carrot' or whatever. But because I use a lot of American recipes for baking I do find them remarkably easy to use now. The More With Less Cookbook has a list of conversions so it's easy to convert solid fats;

2 cups of butter/marge equals 1 lb
1 cup = ½ lb(8 oz)
½ cup = ¼ lb (4 oz)
⅓ cup = 3 oz (just under)
¼ cup = 2 oz

Actually when I think about it there are only 2 recipes I use regularly that I need cups for - muffins (I use the formula from The Tightwad Gazette , and I use oil not solid fat so it's easy to measure in a cup) and the chocolate fudge pudding

If you think converting cup measures to imperial is a pain try what I was doing last night. I'm trying to follow WWs at the moment, so I decided to work out how many points there were in some of my American recipes.
1) Work out how much the ingredients were in ounces because the conversion table in my recipe book only gives ounces.
2) Convert that amount (ozs) into metric because the WW handbook lists all the food in metric:rolleyes:
3) Add all the points for the ingredients together and divide by number of servings.
Well I did about 2 recipes before I got hungry:D

Personally my favourite measuring system is good old lbs and ozs. And, we still are an imperial country otherwise milk and cream would be in round metric measurements not strange ones like 2.272 litres(4 pints)or 284 ml (½ pint);)

squeaky

Because American recipes work by volume and not by weight - different ingredients weigh different amounts. A cupful of sugar weighs more than a cupful of flour, for example.

The easy way to deal with this is to use your measuring jug.

A cup is 240 mil (8oz) so all you need to do is fill your jug with flour (or sugar) until it is level at the 240 mil mark. That's it.

Half cups are 120 and quarter are 60.

Cups are easy, honest.

Becles

I've got digital kitchen scales that you can stand any container on. I tend to measure straight into the mixing bowl, pressing zero after each ingredient.

Therefore I can't be bothered measuring things in cups, as I think it would be more time consuming, and one more thing to wash up!

Mrs_pbradley936

I spend a lot of time in the USA and they use it as a measure of volume to make things easier! With liquid it would be 8 fluid ounces. They tend to use it for dry ingredients as well even though some are denser than others. The trick is not to try to convert the volume measurements into weight.

thriftlady_2

pbradley936 wrote:

The trick is not to try to convert the volume measurements into weight.

Quite right I've just converted a recipe and 1 cup of granulated sugar does not weigh the same as 1 cup of brown sugar.

Mr_Proctalgia

OK - After a good read around the web and a play with a measuring cup this is what I have come up with :- As squeaky said American measures are by volume and not weight, you do not need to worry yourself about what the ingredient is just how much of it you need and the easiest way is to use a cup measure or a measuring jug.

An American cup is 8fl oz by volume which is also half an American pint which is 8 fl oz over here , it DOESN'T convert to weight as it depends on what it is you are measuring. It is 8 FLUID ounce by volume. (or 236 1/2 ml)

A cup measure can (and usually is levelled off with a straight edge of some sort) but can be packed (Bang it up and down then level off) or heaped (self explanitory) A cup of liquid is self explanitory too.

A table spoon is 1/2 a FLUID ounce and a teaspoon is 1/6 of a FLUID ounce - 14.8 and 5ml respectively.

To confuse matters a cup of butter or any other fat WEIGHS 8oz and a stick of butter weighs 4oz (it is a pack of butter cut in half length ways)

So in truth the recipes do not really convert use either a cup measure or use weight measures but do not mix the two together.

I hope this helps

thriftlady_2

Mr_Proctalgia wrote:

To confuse matters a cup of butter or any other fat WEIGHS 8oz and a stick of butter weighs 4oz (it is a pack of butter cut in half length ways)

But, to confuse matters even further, half a pack of butter in this country is 125g which is not the same as 4 oz (112g)

28g (approx) = 1 oz
112g = 4 oz
227g = 8 oz
454g =1 lb

It's all good fun