General Chat

Janey

I assure you that I for one, am not trying to poison you,or drive you mad.lol!

What's the difference,whether you measure out your ingredients in a cup,or weigh them?? It's all the same to me!

If you read my Easy chocolate cake recipe ,you will notice that I said at the end of it that I had a fan-forced oven,which is hotter than conventional ovens,so that I reduce the temp. by 20degrees Celsius,and reduce the cooking time by 10 minutes.

Your displacement method sounds interesting,I must try it.

EDIT: I stand corrected-I have just checked my set of measuring
spoons and you're right-one tablespoon=15 ml, 1 tsp.=5ml etc.
It certainly would make a difference in my recipe. I will change it in the recipe also.

when J was born in 1974, I was given her weight in metric .... we duly sent out announcement cards, and a lot of people wrote back with "Congratulations ...... and just what weight was she?"!!


so we had to convert the metric to lbs and oz

............................ we decided it worked out to just over 7 lbs!

Ah, the old fashioned baby-weighing way.

http://www.caritas.org.au/blueprint/images/baby_weigh.gif

;)

Oh and just read the baby weight. Did you know that in Oz baby's are still referred to by their imperial weight, ie in pounds and ounces.

Some parents do put the weight in kilos as well but the vast majority are still weighed in the old fashioned way.

This is plain ridiculous. I have just typed for ten minutes pressed submit and lost the lot.

Oh botheration.

Think I will have to make THE cake to check if my cup equivalents are accurate. I am currently off chocolate so this wil be an enterprise fraught with peril. I hope too much drool does not make its way into the bowl.

Janey if you google a phrase similar to "what is the cup equivalent of 4 oz flour" and specify imperial, metric, or american, Mr Google will deliver a whole host of conversion tables. Just be sure you work out which country's web site you are using, and therefore which size cup you need.

I am wondering if I could weigh my labrador using the displacement method.

I have, or did have until I loaned it out, the supremely ultimate chocolate cooking book, "Death By Chocolate" I have cooked from it and if memory serves me correctly it is not a Canadian friendly recipe book. I must retrieve it and submit some of the offerings for your delight.

We really should start a new reference group. The Society for the Standardization of Measuring Cups. Or One Size Fits All!!!!

Glad to hear he was early -- not really, of course, I just mean I would have felt rude otherwise for not asking, but he wasn't due for another month. I had "spring" in my head, not "yucky winter won't go away".

Okay, 7 1/2 pounds ... is "baby" more like "flour", "sugar" or "butter"?

Oh, that's right, butter.

So you need a large stockpot with volumes marked off down the side - ounces, MLs, I don't care. Fill it to, oh, 3 gallons with water. Nice warm water is fine. Or 12 litres. Something like that.

Then you know what comes next ...

It's the displacement method! For measuring babies and other awkward items by volume.

Anyhow, the other's one's easy.

7.5 x 454 = 3405 grams.

Roughly 2.5 times what your brain weighs!

lol!!!

Janey will no doubt tell you Sylvia, seven and a half pounds is probably quite a large cupful!! Cx.

this is such an interesting thread!!!



I've actually had to learn to "cook" in 4 countries ....... UK, US, Canada and Australia, plus also a little bit in New Zealand


did you know that every country has got different names for the same bloomin' piece of meat?


I have bought meat by pointing to "that" piece for many years now. Australia was actually the worst place!! (runs away)




oh yes, as Cynthia said

.............. Matthew James arrived 3½ weeks early, almost 3 hours ago. not a small baby either ...7½ lbs.


And I do NOT know what that is in metric!!!


s

Oh dear. You poor poorly pair. Sounds like you need someone to drop off some light 'n tasty tidbits to tempt your appetite and save you having to cook and wash up.


Did you know that SylviaInCanada became a grandma a short while ago??? I'll let her give you the details....it's her perogative. So pleased for her and the family.

Now, take it easy.........go munch some chocolate dear :) Cx.

Well I feel a need for *brownies* coming on, Cynthia!

Problem is I am still so miserably sick I haven't even got it together to try the mug-cake yet ... and now that No.1 is verging on being as miserable, I'm getting stuck with doing dishes plus cooking, so baking is kind of out of the question. ;)

Hmm. If you are trying to produce young girl guides, I guess the question would be how many sparks ... how much sparks? ... by weight or by volume ... it takes to make one brownie ...

On the other hand, if you are cooking *with* young girl guides, I suppose it would be how many brownies / how much brownie it takes to make ... ??

And of course then there would be the conversion problem ... the yanks call 'em girl scouts ... anybody got an imperial to metric to US table handy?

Nooooo!

Delia is not complicated in the least because I can understand her.....and I hate cooking!


...and....golden castor sugar is just a fine sugar which has a ....golden colour to it.


Yikes. Who would have thought that baking a cake could cause so much trauma???


I can feel a need for therapy coming on so will go and check my scales....lol

LOL and I thought that this thread was for cooking young girl guides!!!

well you learn summat everyday dont you? LOL

Where's the Chocolate in that lot???

>>>>> runs away very fast>>>>>>>>>>>

Tsk, I *do* know who Delia Smith is. Tsk. We realy are far more cosmopolitan here in Canuckistan than in either of the U places - K or S.

So what's first up on her site?

http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes

http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/type-of-dish/party-food/petits-monts-blancs.html

Golden caster sugar!!! Eeeeeeeee!!

Okay, that's not a good test, because it's all made of cheesy stuff, and it's sold by fl oz (ml) so no translation problem there.

But look what I see!

http://www.deliaonline.com/home/conversion-tables.html

I just edited the brownie recipe in post 1, and Delia agrees with me:

1 stick butter (that's how yanks tend to buy it, 4 sticks in a pound) = 4oz = 110g

and she says

1 cup brown sugar = 6oz (weight not volume) = 175 g
1 cup granulated sugar = 8oz = 225 g
1 cup flour = 5oz = 150g
etc.

Ludicrous! Pointlessly complicated! I will swear by my 8-oz, 16-tbsp cups (which are also marked in metric mls btw) til I die and never will you convert me to all this weighing nonsense!

Oh, she also says:
If using a fan oven you will need to reduce the oven temperature in a recipe by 20 degrees.

so that answers that too.

Anyhow, back to her recipes ...

Watercress and potato soup
6oz (175g) watercress
1 large onion, roughly chopped
12 oz (350g) potatoes (weight after peeling), chopped small
¾ pint (425ml) vegetable stock (from Marigold bouillon powder)
½ pint (275ml) milk
1 oz (25g) butter, plus an extra teaspoon
the juice of ½ lemon
Salt and freshly milled black pepper

There we go. Weigh the watercress, weigh the potatoes, measure the milk, weigh (or eyeball) the butter ... nope, silliness. ;)


I actually do understand weighing something like potatoes. They're lumpy when cut, with air in between them, so what is a cup of potatoes? Whole, mashed, cubed ...?

Well, I measure 'em by the displacement method ..... hahaha. ;)

Janey, Aunty does not "babble". She informs, advises, lectures, suggests... where's my flamin' Thesaurus. Oh yes instructs, counsels, helps and tolerates.

In the making of the gnache I really don't believe it matters what cream you use as long as it is not the really thin runny stuff. It needs to be pure cream too not the stuff mixed with gelatine.

I thoroughly agree that packed brown sugar differs in volume from loose brown sugar.

And I need to continue this later botheration I have to go. Catcha ya.

I've got the answer!! Janey.....go to YouTube and google Delia Smith...........she is the goddess of cookery over here. If Delia recomments cinnamon sticks....they fly off the shelves. If she recommends a particular kitchen gadget, the makers can't produce them quickly enough. Go......have fun!

I know TW! I watch enough Corrie and EastEnders to be reasonably well self-taught in a lot of the lingo. They just seem to have managed not to do much cooking.

What I need to do is spend some time seriously observing Jamie and the rest of them on the Food Channel, and see whether they're doing things in a foreign cooking language and we're being led wildly astray and no wonder things never work the way they do on TV!

Janey, it's said over here that we (ie people in UK and people in North America which I think includes Canadians lol) are divided by a common language, as well as a heck of a lot of water. LOL