General Chat

Thank you thank you! I shall copy it right off.

I fear that chocolate is not what I crave when I'm snotty and phlegmy. I want fruit and veg. But what did the No.1 bring me for 3 days when I was too weak to object? Potato chips and chocolate bars. What a moron. Those are desert island foods, not sickbed foods. He did get it together to make me a toasted tomato sandwich, which is my what to eat when you have pneumonia and haven't eaten in three days food. And eventually when I pitched a major fit, he went to the Polish deli down the street and got me an apple (1 apple) and a mummified grapefruit. And some OJ and ginger ale, so all wasn't lost.

So now he's got it. The snotty phlegmy disease. So on this fine sunny almost-spring morning, he has the heat ratcheted up to 23C. Nope, son, you aren't cold, you've got chills. For that, you pile on the blankies, you don't double the heating bill. I'm sure he turned it back up as soon as I left the house.

I'm sure *he* thinks chocolate cake is just the thing for a virus, so I shall try and give it a go tonight.

DET DET ...

"the flour (4oz Plain)"

Can you translate that easily into cups? Even UK cups, then I can convert.

We just don't measure things by weight here at all. I have absolutely no clue what 4 oz of flour is.

(I know what fluid ounces are, because that's what cups are divided into, but not dry/weight ounces.)

Ok, ok!!!!!

Using my American cups, 4 oz flour (not packed down) comes to 3/4 of a cup.

Could you work out the recipe by ratio?

Half flour to sugar
Three quarters butter to sugar.

I don't think you need to be too exact with the weights, as long as you get the proportions about right.

Oh here you are, both of you. Let grandma solve the problem.

Equivalent Weights and Measures

Remember a “cup” is not a tissy little afternoon tea cup or a huge coffee cup. Buy yourself a measuring cup.

Dry or Solids

1 level tablespoon = 30 g/1 oz butter, lard, margarine, milk, salt, sugar or water
soft butter, size of an egg = 30 g/1 oz
soft butter, size of a walnut = 15 g/½ oz
1 cup butter = 250 g/½ lb
2 cups chopped mean = 500 g/1 lb
1 cup sugar = 250 g/½ lb
2 tablespoons flour = 30 g/1 oz
1 cup flour = 100 g/4 oz
4 level cups flour = 500 g/1 lb
2 tablespoons rice = 30 g/1 oz
4 tablesoons breadcrumbs = 30 g/1 oz
1 cup breadcrumbs = 60 g/2 oz
1 cup raisins or currants = 180 g/6 oz
4 average tomatoes = 500 g/1 lb
3 big bananas (with skins) = 500 g/1 lb
1 large egg = 50 g/2 oz


Liquids

2 teaspoons = 1 dessertspoon
2 dessertspoons = 1 tablespoon/15 ml/½ fl oz
1 wineglass = 60 ml/2 fl oz
4 tablespoons = ½ cup/150 ml/¼ pint
1 cup = 250 ml/8 fl oz
1 pint = 600 ml/20 fl oz
4 cups = 1 litre/1 quart
4 quarts =- 4.5 litres/1 gallon/8 pints

DET, perfect -- Cdn cups = US cups (even though Cdn pints/quarts/gallons=UK same)

AuntyS, sigh. There's no point giving me equivalents in cups unless I know *whose* cups!

Remember, in the course of this thread, I found out that a UK cup has 10 fl oz, while a Cdn/US cup has 8 fl oz ... which have nothing to do with oz of flour ...

I was just having a read of Muffy's chocolate baking thread and went to look at the "ultimate chocolate cake" recipe mentioned:

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/3092/ultimate-chocolate-cake

200g good quality dark chocolate , about 60% cocoa solids
200g butter , cut in pieces
1 tbsp instant coffee granules
85g self-raising flour
85g plain flour
1⁄4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
200g light muscovado sugar
200g golden caster sugar
25g cocoa powder
3 medium eggs
75ml buttermilk (5 tbsp)
grated chocolate or curls, to decorate

Ganache
200g good-quality dark chocolate , as above
284ml carton double cream (pouring type)
2 tbsp golden caster sugar


I would need several technical dictionaries and a complete laboratory to begin to figure out what all that means ...

JANEY. THIS IS IN CAPITALS. GO BUY YOURSELF A SET OF PLASTIC MEASURING CUPS. PICK THE CUP WHICH HAS A BIG ONE WRITTEN ON IT.
USE THAT CUP FOR ALL THE INGREDIENTS.

Or fill the measuring cup up with water, line all your cups of various sizes on the bench and pour a measuring cup full of water into each of your cups until you find the one which fills up the best from the measuring cup and use that one. But first put a big X on it so you will remember which one it is.

And PS Would you like that chocolate cake recipe in cups and spoonsful, it is not difficult to convert.

I could tell you to go buy a set of scales but I am picturing you standing on bathroom scales with a bag of sugar in one hand and a cup in the other. However, think about it.

AuntyS ... I am going to have to siiiigh.

I have gazillions of measuring cups. Big Pyrex, medium Pyrez, 1-2-4 plastic, several antique Depression glass ... but they are all *Cdn cups*, which are the same as US cups, i.e. 8 fluid ounces.

The UK cup has 10 fluid ounces. The UK cup is bigger than the North American cup. I only learned this in the course of this thread!

In Canada, we measure

(a) Old-style in cups, tsps, tablespoons. Never by weight in ounces (dry), or by volume in ounces (liquid), unless something calls for, say, a 14-oz tin of tomato sauce.
(b) New-style in millilitres by volume, where 250 mls is roughly a cup. But again, never in grams by weight.

The tables I use for calculating carb content so No.1 can calculate his mealtime insulin are also by volume: 1/2 cup mashed potatoes, 1 cup rice, 1 cup cucumber, etc. (To be honest, weight measurement would be a better idea for this purpose in some cases, but I'd have to go get a whole new set of tables, and do two different measurements of everything I cooked ...)

Measurement by weight is just totally foreign. No North American recipe ever, ever specifies an amount of an ingredient by weight. I have not the slightest idea how many potatoes are in a pound, or a kilo, or how much two ounces of sugar is.

And the equivalencies I'm seeing when I go looking seem to be wildly different! You have a large egg = 50 g. Ann o' GG says in this thread that 2 large eggs = 5 oz. One oz = 28 grams. Five oz = 141 grams. So one large egg, per Ann o' GG, = 70 grams. Per you, 50 grams. Aargh.

Life is very simple here:

1 cup = 8 fl oz
1 cup = 16 tbsp
1 tbsp = 3 tsp

Metrically, for converting, but it's still always by volume, not weight:

1 tbsp = 15 ml
1 tsp = 5 ml
so 1 cup = 240 ml, which is nearly exactly right

And 1 large egg = 1 large egg, obviously!


You could convert that recipe for me, but you'd also have to tell me what muscovado sugar is and where I'd find it, figure out how much baking powder to add to the flour to get the self-raising flour, tell me what % butterfat "double cream" is so I know which of half a dozen types of cream to buy ... oh, and send me some new baking soda (bicarbonate of soda), since I filled my baking soda canister wtih flour ... ;)


Seriously -- I hadn't had any idea that we were all divided by so many fractious fractions of so many different things when it comes to cooking, especially baking!

And the scales you buy will be the ones which hang on the wall. That way they are always handy, are never lost in the messy cupboard under the bench, and don't clutter up the bench top when you are baking.

"Bench"? I think I should assume you are talking about the counter(top) ... which actually in my family, at least, was also referred to generically as the "cupboard": "put the plate on the cupboard" / "put the plate on the counter".

But hmm, bench? Do you sit on the surface where you assemble all your strange ingredients in their strange quantities? ;)

Janey


it's very simple


when using Canadian or American cook books then use 8 oz


when using British or Australian recipes mesure ou 10 oz


and that goes for flour or liquid



now you know why I'm half crazy.

I 've been doing that split for over 40 years :)))))






Oh I saw someone asking if Nanaimo bar was similar to Vanilla slice


No No No



at least not the Vanilla slice that I know that had a custardy filling between 2 layers of flaky or puff pastry






ps ......... good to see you back!

It's absolutely tippling down with rain here, so keep your OH in and warm is he's developing the dread lurgy. This should arrive over there in the enxt couple of days.



sylvia

I am going to have to sigh huuuuugely.

I can cope with the cups in their various sizes! (now that I know they're different - should have expected they were, since we have the silly split-personality 8-oz cups and 40-oz quarts)

It's the measurements in WEIGHT that I can't do!!!!!!! Aaaargh!

I mean, I could go googling for conversion tables, but like I say, there doesn't seem to be agreement on what the equivalencies are.

And I still say that weighing stuff you're cooking with is just ... silly. ;)


Yes, I'm back, still snotty and phlegmy, but I suspect I'll have to take a back seat to the No.1 on that this week.

But I went looking for the politics/politicians thread some of us had such an interesting time in -- to find it gone. I have requested an explanation. Hahaha. Oh well, I see the "Connie" (Ruth Kim Hope etc) account has now been exterminated. Good show.

No!

AuntyS and I posted on there a couple of times



maybe we are the thread killers!

Hi Sylvia IC.

Completely ignoring Janey.

If you use the same cup for measuring all ingredients surely it would not matter if the cup was 8 fl oz or 10 fl oz. The ingredients would be in correct proportion to each other.

It is when you start weighing some ingredients and measuring others in the same recipe you need to be careful.

EDitty. I am going looking for the political thread. If it is not there I will be very cross.

Actually, AuntyS ..............


I use cups or spoons for liquid .....................


and a scale to weigh dry ingredients (spoons for very small amounts)


It's what I was taught to do many many years ago, so I just continue.



and 8 oz on the scales here is the same as 8 oz on a scale in the UK


I mean ....... what does it really mean when it says "½ cup brown sugar, well packed"?????


re the cup measure .................... it does however make a difference whether the cup is 8 or 10 oz even if you use the same cup for all ingredients.


I have to pay particular attention to where the recipe originated when I am making my jams and jellies



The other thing that I have discovered makes a difference is the flour

I could make sponge ckaes in the UK and they were acceptable ....................... I cannot make a sponge cake to save my life over here, especially if I use one of my English recipes. Thye do duty as curling stones!

A Home Ec person told me years ago that, in her opinion, it was due to the fact that the wheat variety used to make flour over here is different from the one(s) used in Europe or elsewhere.


Soooooooo I gave up trying to make sponge cakes about 35 years ago after struggling with them.


The flour seems to make no difference with fruit cakes, coffee breads, muffins, cookies etc.




sylvia

OK. So now I'm cross. And do you know what is even funnier....... I can not for the life of me remember the name of the thread.

All I can recall is Political Compass.

Tidying up here and going home.

If you have a set of measuring cups. Hint, Janey, hint, hint. You take the ½ cup one and tip soft brown sugar into it and press it down. Just like making a sand castle at the beach with a bucket.

That is different from filling a cup up with flour using a spoon. And you never, ever scoop the measuring cup into the flour cannister. Always fill it with a spoon or ladle.

but you might press the sugar down harder than I do


and is it ½ cup before tamping down or after tamping down?



and that's a b****r about the political thread.


........ and not even telling JC it was being removed!




sylvia

From my chemistry about matter occupying space. I don't think it matters how hard you tamp down the sugar. The half cup is after you have squashed it into the half cup.

I bow to your reasoning on the size of the cup. However I still believe things should work out. And there has to be a reason for the sponges not working. Wonder if it is to do with the raising agent or lack of in your self raising flour.

This 'to weigh or not to weigh' thing is seriously amusing....how the heck do you weigh newborns in Canada........squash 'em into a cup?


No....then you'd be arguing about what size cup you would use. Sounds a bit like bra measurements to me.. lol

That's really good Cynthia - lol!!!!