General Chat

I thought I'd posted that yesterday but found I hadn't. Now I see AuntyS is still babbling.

Golden caster sugar. I am completely confident that no such thing is to be found on my local grocery shelves.

1/4 tsp -- I have this wonderful thing called a measuring spoon set. It has 1/4, 1/2 and 1 tsp, and 1 tbsp. Magic!

Whatever this "Willow" thing is, I don't need it or want it! My recipes will continue to call for, say, 1 cup flour, 1 cup grated cheese, 1 cup packed brown sugar, and I will use my nice uniform measuring cups. (Very very occasionally, for something like cheese that actually is sold in packages marked in weight, a recipe may say something like "4 oz cheese, grated" and I can deal wtih that.)

I still don't know what "double cream" is. 10% mf? 30% mf? Whipping cream, table cream ...?

There are no instant coffee granules in my house ...


But the main thing here may be -- I can't stand dark chocolate. ;)

Between you people and the virus that will not leave ... I am going to go outside, walk down the sidewalk ("pavement" ... which prompts me to ask whether you people don't pave your roadbeds, and if you do, how you know that "pavement" refers to the part you walk on and not the part you drive on ...), go to the back yard ("garden" ... except it isn't, nothing grows there, growing is in the side yard ...), and bang my head repeatedly against the wall ("wall" -- do you have some other word for that now?).


Cynthia ... no, we do not measure babies by volume here. This would be because we generally want to know how much a particular baby weighs, and not because we are baking something that calls for "x" amount of BABY. Perhaps you do? ;)

But if we were doing that ... we would use the displacement method, just like for butter and lard and such like solids. Hahahaha. Fill a very large measuring thingy to the 3-quart level with cold water. Place baby in container, submerge baby completely, read the level the water rises to. Voilà. If you don't have enough baby, add some more. If you have too much, well, you'll have to solve that yourself.


Now, we don't always have to use the displacement method for butter. (Does nobody remember displacement from high school science lab??)

This is because, as I mentioned in passing, our butter comes in one-pound (now called 454-gram) oblongs covered in paper or foil --- and that paper or foil is conveniently and sensibly marked off in the volumes needed for cooking: 1/4 cup, 1/2 cup, 1 cup, etc. A pound of butter (or lard/shortening, which is also marked off this way) is 2 and 1/4 cup, if I recall correctly. You look at the line on the paper and you hack off the amount you need.

Butter does not come in plastic containers. That's margarine. And there is not much easier than putting 2 cups of cold water in a large measuring cup and adding margarine, or shortening or butter, if you've messed up your paper wrapper, until you have 2.5 cups, to give you 1/2 cup of margarine, or whatever the heck you need.


And it doesn't matter how much you try to persuade me that it is sensible, I am never ever ever going to start cooking by recipes that measure some ingredients by volume and some by weight! That is just, pardon my French, NUTS. I can tell how many cups of cooked lentils I'm looking at by eye - or by reading the volume scale (cups and quarts on one side, mls and litres on the other) etched on the inside of the Ikea saucepan I just cooked them in. That's how I plan to keep doing it. ;)


And now, woowoowendi. Well, if you really did make the brownie recipe, and if you really did get the results you describe, I can think of a few possible reasons.

Two are as you suggest.

First, perhaps you really are the world's worst baker. In that case, it might be impossible for someone else to guess where you went wrong.

Second, perhaps it was the convection oven. (That's the thing you call a fan oven there, I think. They are very uncommon here and I've been surprised at the number of people who seem to have them over there. Here, they're newfangled and expensive.) I have no experience on which to base a guess.

Third, perhaps you neglected to read through the thread and realize that the measurements I gave were in *North American* units, i.e. 8-ounce (by volume) cups, not the 10-ounce cups you use. So the ratio of 4 eggs to 8 ounces of flour that the recipe calls for is going to produce something quite different from the ratio of 4 eggs to 10 ounces of flour that you may have used.

Fourth, perhaps it really just isn't too clever to arbitrarily reduce one of the main ingredients of a recipe by half -- in this case, from 2 cups sugar to 1 cup sugar -- and expect the result to be as advertised. Hmm. I wonder how it would have turned out if you'd just eliminated the sugar altogether ...

Because if there's one thing that recipe does not make, it is a dry baked good. Nuh uh, nuh uh.


Anyhow. I'm going to keep on using recipes that measure all ingredients the same way: by volume.

And I'm going to give up on converting weights to volumes, I'm afraid. Nobody seems to agree on the method.

And Margot ... siiiiiiiigh ... you have given me a recipe with equivalents in imperial and metric -- but they are still *weight* and I don't care what system you weigh things in, you're still measuring by weight/with scales, and not by volume/with measuring cups! Eeeeee!

And I know very very well that 1 tbsp = 15 mls, not 30 mls as your notes say. That is one thing I really do know. So I'm starting to get the feeling that somebody is maybe trying to ... either poison me or drive me mad, here. ;)

One final word for AuntyS. It very much matters whether brown sugar, for instance - measured by volume - is packed or loose. Yeesh.

Foreigners. Just weeeeird, they are!

It truly is odd. I hadn't any idea we spoke so many strange and wonderful different languages when it comes to something as universal as cooking!

Aunty Sherlock

My Willow measuring cone thingy is probably the same age as yours,but yours has had more use than mine.Mine still has it's bottom bit,lol

I really hate to see people missing out on a challenge. So Janey, here you are. Muffy's chocolate cake converted from uninterpretable gibberish into an easy to understand recipe of scientific excellence. You will of course need to find a decent grocery store in order to purchase the sugars, but that is part of the challenge.

And when you are standing in your kitchen surrounded by dozens of dirty pots, an obscene looking mixture you know will never cook up into the delicacy imagined, and a floor covered in several unidentifiable substances.... you would do well to remember I am so very pleased to be living on the other side of the planet.

The ExtraOrdinarily Difficult Chocolate Cake - Canadian Version

Using the 8 fl oz cup (or 250 ml)


200g good quality dark chocolate , about 60% cocoa solids
Buy a 250gm block of good quality cooking chocolate and eat enough squares to reduce it to 200 g.

200g butter , cut in pieces
Take one 250g pat of butter (not margarine) and divide it into 50 gram lots and use 4 bits.

1 tbsp( or two dessert spoons or 4 teaspoons) instant coffee granules (instant coffee from the jar you grab before you wake up in the morning)

85g (3/4 of a cup, 1 cup equals 100 grams) self-raising flour (all purpose flour with baking powder added – go buy self raising flour or cake flour)

85g (3/4 of a cup) plain flour (all purpose flour)

1⁄4 tsp ( fill teaspoon with soda level it out divide in 4 use a quarter) bicarbonate of soda

200g (1 cup)light muscovado sugar
Muscovado is a type of unrefined brown sugar with a strong molasses flavor.Also known as "Barbados sugar" or "moist sugar", muscovado is very dark brown and slightly coarser and stickier than most brown sugars.

200g ( 3/4 cup) golden caster sugar
Caster (Superfine) sugar that is made from unrefined sugar. Has a light brown colour and a very subtle buttery toffee taste.

25g (1 teaspoon less than a quarter of a cup) cocoa powder brown chocolately stuff which is difficult to dissolve in cold milk or water

3 medium eggs (not too big, not too small)

75ml buttermilk (5 tbsp) Buttermilk used to be the milk left over after churning the butter. Buttermilk is now a commercial product made by adding a culture (usually lactic acid bacteria) to skim milk, causing it to sour and thicken. Buttermilk can be substituted by adding 2 tablespoons of lemon juice or vinegar (or 2 teaspoons of cream of tartar) to 1 cup of milk.

grated chocolate or curls, to decorate (use the potato peeler to shave the chocolate – if you haven’t eaten all the leftover bits.

Ganache

200g good-quality dark chocolate , as above (more left over chocolate to eat).
284ml carton double cream (pouring type) (bit more than 1 x 250 ml carton.)
2 tbsp golden caster sugar

I do of course hope you have the method of combining all of these ingredients. Hopefully the web site containing this info is still accessible???

Hey Margot. Guess what I am holding in my hand. Actually I have two of them. English and Metric Cooks Measure. Conical shaped with the ounces and grams written on the inside with all the different ingredients. Oh and lookee here it has English, metric and American.

1 English cup equals half an English pint or 284 ml. And one American cup equals half an American pint or 213 ml.

Actually my measures are so old their little plastic bottoms have disappeared and I have to be really careful when I fill them up because one bump and there's stuff everywhere.

Oh well these are probably far too technical for the Canadians. Which reminds me which size cup did Janey say she was using!!!?

Janey

I have a Willow metric kitchen measure which I think Aunty Sherlock referred to,which is handy for converting measurements.
It's a cone shaped tin which sits on a stand to hold it upright.It has
grams and ounces,litres and mils,cups,pints etc.Apparently 4ounces
(ozs) or 125grams of say,cocoa is different from the same amount of grated cheese.They come up to different levels inside the container.
Anyway,one ounce=30grams.

I have a really easy and quick chocolate cake which is very nice,and can be frozen.It's not as rich as some of the other recipes either.It's always been a family favourite with us.

EASY 3 MINUTE CHOCOLATE CAKE

3ozs (90g)melted butter
6 ozs (180g) castor sugar (ordinary sugar is fine)
6 ozs (180g) self raising flour
half a cup of milk (1 cup=250ml)
2 tablespoons cocoa (1 Tbspn=20g)
2 eggs
half teaspoon vanilla essence ( half tspn.=2ml)

Put all ingredients into a large bowl and beat by hand for 3 minutes,or about 1 minute if using electric beaters,until well combined.
Bake in an 8inch (20cm) round tin at 350F (180C) for 35-40 minutes.

(My oven is fan-forced so I only use 160 degrees and reduce the time of cooking by 10 minutes as I find that fan-forced ovens are hotter.)

Turn out onto a rack and ice with chocolate icing when cool.

Enjoy!

(Hopefully I have all the measurements covered,so that everyone can understand them.)

Wend

I honestly don't know ................. I'm originally English, so I grew up with measuring and weighing, so cup measures were strange to me


One thought I've just had ..... and it is my own thought! ................... I wonder if the reason goes back to pioneer days over here?


The women would have had very few utensils to help with cooking, and would have had to make do.

Maybe scales for the kitchen would ahve been considered "unnecessary" when determining how much stuff you take on the ship, or on the wagon on a traipse across the ocean or the prairies. Things to do with work or farming would have taken priority.



sylvia

Wend. I hardly ever weigh butter and have never measured it in a cup. In this part of the world the packets used to be marked off in 20g markings. In the olden days Mum taught me to unwrap the 8 oz butter pack mark a corner to corner diagonal cross on the butter and where the two lines intersect in the middle, cut there. And voila you have two exact 4 oz portions. Bit hard to do in these days of plastic containers.

And no I have never filled a cup with water in order to measure butter!!!

However you can measure butter by cup. It just needs to be squishy and cut up a bit. And nooooooo please don't melt it, unless of course the recipe asks for one cup of melted butter.

By the way on melting chocolate. Do not allow any water to come in contact with chocolate while melting. You can melt over a double boiler or in the microwave but I think the rule is to melt first and add the other ingredients after.

Poor you!


The US always has to be different!!


and American and Canadian cook books are the only places where I have seen recipes calling for a cup of butter!


When I first saw that in a recipe I didn't know about filling the cup with water etc ............ so I filled the cup with butter.


Then had to try to get it out.


Later, I smeared the cup with a non-stick spray first. The butter came out more or less easily with that.

Finally, I heard about the water ........ but ahve flooded by kitchen counter on more than occasion!



sylvia

gee thanks! lol!!

Well, looks like that could be your job when you visit as a new grandma Sylvia!! lol

lol!!



actually ........ I seem to remember that years and years ago you used to weigh breast fed babies (especially newborns) before and after feeding to make sure they were getting enough food.


Daughter informed me the other week that you don't do that now ................ you carefully watch the amount and kind of poo they put out ...................... ugggghhh!

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.