To our American/Canadian Abers

[puddicat]

I love trying new recipes but dont understand what they mean by a cup of this and that can you tell me what that would be either in metric or imperial measurement thanks!!!

[Jugglering]

Puddicat... it's impossible to list the weight of every ingredient - a cup of butter will weigh a lot more than a cup of flour for example. Cups are measures by volume so you really need to get yourself a set of measuring cups - I got mine in Tesco's ! They come in 1/4 cup (60ml), 1/3 cup (80ml), 1/2 cup (125ml) and 1 cup (250ml) sizes generally. (I've actually got two sets - one for dry ingredients and one for liquids). It's the same with teaspoons and tablespoons - I've got two sets of them. A tablespoon is 15ml, 1 teaspoon is 5ml, 1/2 teaspoon is 2.5ml and 1/4 teaspoon is 1.25ml.

[ethandron]

i just use an ordinary small plastic cup. if it says use half a cup, then i estimate half of it. as long as you use the same cup to measure each ingredient it's fine. cooking at home is not really an exact science, well, it's not in our house, so for myself i don't worry about being too exact with weights and measures.

[Jugglering]

Just to help you for the time being, here's a list of a few common ingredients with their equivalent weight (I've had fun in the kitchen !)

1 cup flour (white, wholemeal or cornmeal) 135g 4�oz
1 cup rice (white basmati) 160g 5�oz
1 cup rice (brown) 170g 6oz
1 cup sugar (white, granulated) 210g 7�oz
1 cup sugar (dark muscovado) 145g 5oz
1 cup porridge oats 95g 3�oz
1 cup dried red lentils 180g 6�oz

[Booldawg]

I think the Americans have a better system. We talk in ounces, grams, pound, kilograms, miles and metres! Why cant we just stick to one system?

[puddicat]

depends how big the cup is!

[Jugglering]

Hiya Puddicat (brill name btw),,, as I said earlier, you need to get hold of some (standard) cup measures... I got mine in Tesco's - they really do make baking and cooking a lot easier.