General Chat

Janey meet your first obsessive compulsive person on this thread.

I most definitely have a set of scales in my kitchen. They are on the wall and have a flip down tray. I particularly use them at Christmas time when I am making my pudding.

When my children were home and I baked each weekend I always used them. Nowadays I don't bake cake anymore because I throw out more than we eat.


here is another Chocolate Recipe. Not mine but a great favourite at work. Ha! You can do this one, most of the measurements are in cups.

Chocolate Caramel Slice

Base
1 cup self raising flour
1 cup brown sugar (that is soft brown sugar)
1 cup of coconut
125 gm margarine or butter melted.

Combine all ingredients together and mix well. Spread in greased lamington tray. Bake ten minutes at 180 deg C.

Middle

1 tin condensed milk. (heavens are you going to have a problem with that? It is thick creamy sweetened milk which comes in a can or a tube. It is made by Nestle and is absolutely delicious on bread and butter or if you are really lucky eaten from the can with a teaspoon.

1 heaped tablespoon butter
3 tablespoons golden syrup (like treacle only lighter)

Melt all ingredients together and bring to boil. Maintain for five minutes stirring constantly. Spread over base and return to oven for a further ten minutes.
Cool. (That is a direction, not an observation).

Top

150 gm cooking chocolate
60 gm copha (white vegetable shortening)

Melt together and spread over chilled slice. Leave to set.

Cut into squares. It is very rich so make the squares smallish

I feel really stupid explaining the ingredients.

Is sterilized milk like our UHT milk. It is treated so it will keep for a very long time in a carton without refrigeration.

Are your nanaimo bars the same as our vanilla slices. Description sounds the same.

http://vanillaslice.wordpress.com/


Icing sugar is known as confectioners sugar. Here is another explanation.


It can be a bit confusing with all the different sugars out there: icing, raw, muscovado, caster...the list is endless! Thankfully, it's easy to explain the difference between the two icing sugars on the market.

Icing sugar mixture, also known as confectioners' sugar or powdered sugar, is pulverised granulated sugar crushed together with a small amount (about three percent) of cornflour. This icing sugar is great to use when making icing for kids' birthday cakes or dusting sweet treats.


Similar in appearance to the former, pure icing sugar is also made from pulverised granulated sugar but contains no cornflour.

For everyday cooking, icing sugar mixture does the trick; the only place where pure icing sugar is a must is when making royal icing, modelling fondant and the like. If you are gluten intolerant, be sure to choose pure icing sugar over icing sugar mixture

Sterilized Milk

This is defined as milk, which has been heated to a temperature of 100°C or above for such lengths of time that it remains fit for consumption for at least 7 days at room temperatures. Usually the milk is heated to108-111°C for 25 to 30 min.
My mil always used this milk I think because she got to like it during the war . It has quite a distinctive taste.

Yes, AoGG ... now what sort of obsessive compulsive person has weighing scales in their kitchen? ;)

I'm going to try the cake in a mug tonight I think. Oh drat, I can't -- all this talk of baking and I have to wait until No.1 goes shopping to get flour!

However, I have asked Google images for Victoria sponge, and I see it's a layer cake with jammy or creamy things in the middle. It seems it should have straight sides, so a cake pan with removable bottom is the thing it needs? Springform, that's the word. And Google images says yes. Now those I have!

no way of weighing eggs! just pop them on the kitchen weighing scales - two large eggs usually weigh 5 ozs - Stork - a soft margarine

and no, our butter doesn't come like that!!

Nanaimo bars -- I copied & pasted that directly from the website --

http://www.nanaimo.ca/EN/main/visitors/NanaimoBars.html

Just the four ingredients for layer 2: butter, cream, vanilla custard powder and icing sugar. I've never actually made the things, but I've been known to eat 'em from bakeries. That layer is basically a thick creamy icing.

Is our icing sugar the same as yours? Basically superfine sugar combined with cornstarch, which you call cornflour.

I checked another recipe:

http://www.joyofbaking.com/NanaimoBars.html

and for layer 2, it has

1/4 cup (56 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 - 3 tablespoons milk or cream
2 tablespoons vanilla custard powder (Bird's) or vanilla pudding powder
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups (230 grams) powdered sugar (confectioners or icing)

so basically the same?

Give it a try Joanna and let us know! Be warned though, they really are "wonderfully rich", as one site says, and you really don't want to eat too many. ;)


Ann o' GG. I see no chocolate in your recipe! -- Oh, I see, you can make it chocolate.

My problems ... I don't really know what a sponge cake is, so don't know how it should be when it's done. I have no way of weighing eggs -- weighing eggs?? I don't know what a sponge tin is, and doubt I have any. And what the * is Stork?

DET - easy way to measure butter, just make sure it isn't too soft.

Fill a measuring cup to 1 cup with very cold water.
Add butter (and hold it under with the knife) until the water reaches 1.5 cups or 2 cups or whatever you need. Ta da. I think I learned that in grade 8 home ec. ;)

But anyhow, doesn't your butter come in wrappers with 1/4, 1/2 and 1 cup lines marked on??

and if you want to make a no messing about victoria sponge use the following all in one recipe

weigh two eggs - say 5 ozs
then add 5 oz each of
self raising flour sieved with a tsp of baking powder
caster sugar
Stork or butter
half an eggshell of water

mix the lot together and put into two sponge tins cooking for about twenty minutes on 190 deg.


you can flavour by adding a tbs chocolate powder mixed with a drop of boiling water to make a chocolate sponge

add half an eggshell of lemon juice with the grated zest of lemon to make a lemon one

same for orange

She probably did - lol

Anyway, I've been experimenting with some American 'Cup' measures and imperial digital scales.

Obviously something is going wrongs as

1 cup flour = 4 oz
but
1 cup sugar = 6 1/4 oz

Didn't try butter cos that would be toooo messy

Hi Joanna, from early morning land.

Missing ingredient. Oh that would be right!

Do you know that is an old ploy used by master cooks to protect their secret recipes. Leave out one of the ingredients so no one else can make it exactly the same way.

Janey!! You didn't do that, did you???????

Good-whatever-time-of-day-it-is-with-you, Janey.
Having read your recipe for Nanaimo bars, I am game to have a go at making them. Especially as my maiden name was Roberts.
But, silly question - is there an ingredient missing from the second line of the recipe for the second layer?


Joanna

Bother I am at work and dont have my scales and measurements book. Dear Janey. First of all tartaric acid is from the chemist or pharmacy as you probably call it. Cream of tartar is from the food shop. Cream of tartar is tartaric acid with the flour added (I think). Oh go google it and find out.

Australian measurements.

1 standard cup of flour weighs 4 ounces
1 standard cup of butter weighs 8 ozs
1 standard cup of white sugar weighs 8 oz

off the top of my head.

You need a measuring container with the different ingredients marked on the inside of the container with their respective weights and volumes.

We are now metric in Australia and have been for many years. However my cook books are like their owner and therefore old. So some of my cookbook are in metric and some in imperial.

Our measurements do not mirror the USA. I think they are closer to UK in imperial. Heavens knows what in metric.

We have teaspoons, dessertspoons and tablespoons. Each has a corresponding volume.

Obviously..... your cooking borders on scientific experimentation. Just so you do not have any problems with the excact measurement of ingredients I will post the definitive Australian measurement list later this afternoon. I suggest you keep out of the laboratory until you have this important information.

Edit. You also need to specify if you are measuring by "cup", if the measurement is by liquid volume, or by weight.

Right - enough of these proportion discussions and down to what is important....what do things taste like?

I had a crack at Barry's 5 minute cake in a cup, for this evening's pudding. Split 3 ways with ice cream.

Cooked for 2 1/2 minutes in an 'E' rated microwave (no idea what 1000w is the equivalent to). Rose nicely, well abvove the level of the mug, but had 'set' so didn't slop all over the place.

It isn't a 'light' sponge by any means, but went down a treat. The addition of choc drops (didn't have any) would make it chocolatier and perhaps a little more moist.

Deffinatley on our list when the choccy urges strike.

Well, you made it, Susan#. ;)

Who needs cookbooks when you've got us??

If you wish to live on chocolate, sugar and butter, of course.

Yes, Kay, actually I was considering stocking up on brownies in a box on the next shopping trip, to try to stop No.1 from spending the grocery money on chocolate bars for dessert every day. And even he can make brownies in a box - heck, I've even bought the ones that you mix right in the cooking box! Problem is, he then has to make sure the entire thing gets eaten that same night ...

And the other problem is that once you've tasted these brownies, you might not be able to eat brownies in a box ever again. ;)

Hmmm!...where is this wider audience?......Not on my thread, or this, I see lol

All that bother,,,,,,,,,,,,


Brownie mixture can be bought in a box,

how easy is that,:}}}}}}}}}}

Oh, Quoy - chocolate sauce - yes, I have one similar in my microwave cookbook!

What's sterilized milk? .........

And if I use cream, won't it be even better? ;)

Okay, let's take a vote.

How many ounces in a cup?

Canada/US = 8 oz

UK = 10 oz.

Australia = 4 oz.?? I don't thiiiink so. ;)
Or is that 4 oz. *by weight*??

I think your brain is sugar overloaded, AuntyS.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cup_%28volume%29

Commonwealth of Nations
[except this doesn't actually include Canada!]

Imperial cup
The imperial cup is unofficially defined as half an imperial pint.

1 imperial cup = 0.5 imperial pints
= 10 imperial fluid ounces
≈ 284 millilitres
≈ 19 international tablespoons
≈ 14¼ Australian tablespoons
≈ 1.20 U.S. customary cups
≈ 9.61 U.S. customary fluid ounces


United States

United States customary cup
United States customary cup is defined as half a U.S. pint.

1 U.S. customary cup = 0.5 U.S. customary pints
= 8 U.S. customary fluid ounces
= 16 U.S. customary tablespoons
≈ 237 millilitres
≈ 15⅔ international tablespoons
≈ 11¾ Australian tablespoons
≈ 0.833 imperial cups
≈ 8.33 imperial fluid ounces

United States "legal" cup
The cup currently used in the United States for nutrition labelling is defined in United States law as 240 mL.

1 U.S. "legal" cup = 240 millilitres
= 16 international tablespoons
= 12 Australian tablespoons
≈ 8.12 U.S. customary fluid ounces
≈ 8.45 imperial fluid ounces

-- that's what I go by: 1 cup = 8 oz. = 16 tbps.
I have no idea why Australians have such big tablespoons.

Now, if you want Japan ...


Lucky I realized this before trying anybody's recipes though! I have to convert. It wouldn't matter much for stew, but for baking it would.

And ditto if anybody wants to try my brownie recipe I guess.

>>> Where my recipe says "1 cup", you Brits want to say "4/5 cup".

Aargh.

You Australian, I'm not going to try to guess.

Janey Tartaric acid will be available in the section of your supermarket/food store where you buy the bi carb soda and salt and pepper etc.

You really do not need to go to that length. If you wish to convert your all purpose flour into SR flour just add the baking powder. And please make sure it is baking powder, and not baking soda which I think is an alternative name for bi-carb soda.

Of course if you buy Self raising flour to start with you won't have to strain your mathematical brain with the calculations.

By the way one cup of flour is 4 ounces, as any cook worth her salt knows.

Nope!! Not good enough. Need to take that further. I know this is Janey's thread however......

Rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb.

Thank you.

chocolate sauce to go with anything or just eat from bowl
1pt full cream milk ( sterilized if you can get it)
1 large bar of cadburys milk chocolate
1 oz butter
1 oz cornflour

put into large bowl milk , broken up chocolate
microwave on full power until chocolate has melted , stir occasionally
mix cornflour with small amount of cold milk
pour into bowl add butter stir
microwave on full power until thick stir occasionally

Eat Enjoy