How do you turn cup measurements into grams?

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Why do we Americans continue to use cups and spoonfuls? Very simple. It is what we learned at a young age, what our mothers used and taught us. Americans are great at mucking about. It makes for a great pastime. :angel:

I've been baking for going on 50 years. If I can manage the changeover, surely the younger generation shouldn't quail! LOL!
 
I'm also in the process of converting my cup based recipes to grams. Whenever I am making something and I'm not in a hurry, I measure in cups and then weigh the ingredient and take notes. Weighing is so much easier.
 
Geez, calm down, Barbarian ;) Our method works fine for the millions of cooks who use it. No one suggested you do anything differently.

I am actually not sure what you think you are reacting to, but maybe you just haven't had your morning cup of joe yet. Or maybe you did ... could go either way there, LOL!

At any rate I'm not un-calm so ... no need to worry about it, tyvm.
 
Yeah but cups come in all types of sizes how do I know what size cup to measure with and how do I know how much a quarter cup is... :S
I assume you are British or similar, rather than American. It' s a lot easier to convert American recipes from cups to ounces rather than cups to grammes (because, of course, America has had more sense than to go metric so their cups still measure in ounces).

You don't use just any old cup out of your china cupboard. Special measuring cups come in sets of cup, half cup, quarter cup and in some cases a third of a cup and to measure larger amounts of liquid you can buy Pyrex-type jugs marked off in cups, ounces and grammes. If buying standard measuring cups and spoons in Britain you'll find they don't hold exactly the same as American ones which can cause problems when baking but isn't as crucial with other sorts of dishes. You can, however, get hold of American measuring cups on Ebay (sorry, can't remember the company's name).

Actually, when you get down to it, American recipes using cups aren't that difficult. Remember not to pack flour but do pack soft brown sugar lightly. And if you're British remember that the American pint is 16 ounces not 20 ounces like our "Imperial" pint. "Sticks" of butter weigh 4 ounces.


I'm sure if I've got any of the above wrong I expect someone can correct me.

What really gets me is the flour issue - "all purpose flour" isn't quite our "strong" bread flour but isn't like our "plain" flour either and the situation is further complicated by our "self-raising" flour which doesn't seem to have an equivalent in the US and the vast (by British standards) amounts of raising agents that need to go into American cake mixes, presumably because of the amount of gluten in the flour.
 
TL, we do have self rising flour.
Presto Self Rising Cake Flour 2 Lb. - Reily Foods Company
It is called cake flour. There is another company also that makes it. It is a soft red winter wheat flour. Down south they sell a brand called Lily flour. White Lily® - A Note To Our Consumers - Flour Mill FAQs
It is a very light flour unlike our regular flour like King Arthur's. Our regular flour is a hard winter wheat flour and heavier than the soft red winter wheat.

We can get the soft cake flour with or without the self rising component added. Just thought you would like to know.

The cake flour makes heavenly biscuits. :angel:
 
One more further note. You can buy measuring cups with the ml. or c. markings on them. I have a set of six and on the 1/4 c. it is also marked 60 ml.
Amazon.com: RSVP 6-Piece Stainless Steel Nesting Measuring Cup Set: Kitchen & Dining

These are heavy duty steal 18/8, sit evenly nested and I love them. I also have a set of measuring spoons that are magnetic, sit flat on a surface and they too have the mL markings. 1/4 tsp. 1.25 mL. :angel:
 
... America has had more sense than to go metric so their cups still measure in ounces ...

Allow me to disagree here. America has no sense at all when it comes to measuring system. The whole wide world is using metric. If America were using metric it would be so much easier. And I am absolutely positive there would be even economic benefits for the whole country as far as trade go. I for sure see it in our company, we are having really hard time with manufacturing stuff for Europe, because they do not want American Standard, they want metric stuff. ;)
 
Allow me to disagree here. America has no sense at all when it comes to measuring system. The whole wide world is using metric. If America were using metric it would be so much easier. And I am absolutely positive there would be even economic benefits for the whole country as far as trade go. I for sure see it in our company, we are having really hard time with manufacturing stuff for Europe, because they do not want American Standard, they want metric stuff. ;)


+1 It should have been done decades ago.
 
I agree, Charlie. I'm American, born and bred, but I actually prefer metric, too. Weighing dry ingredients and moving decimal points around has become second nature. It's not difficult and, once you get used to it, is much more intuitive than trying to remember how many teaspoons are in a quarter cup or how many pints make up a gallon. In the metric world, water freezes at 0 degrees and boils at 100. How hard is that? As an added bonus, once you take the plunge, you open yourself up to a whole new world of international recipes.
 
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One more who lives on Western side of the pond who prefers metric. Canada converted quite a while ago, but most of our recipes are still in US or Imperial measures, usually US, even though Canada used to use Imperial measures.
 
I avoid fractions whenever possible. It's an irrational fear developed in elementary school math class. With metric, you don't have to worry about least common denominators, converting improper fractions, etc.
 
Allow me to disagree here. America has no sense at all when it comes to measuring system. The whole wide world is using metric. If America were using metric it would be so much easier. And I am absolutely positive there would be even economic benefits for the whole country as far as trade go. I for sure see it in our company, we are having really hard time with manufacturing stuff for Europe, because they do not want American Standard, they want metric stuff. ;)

Charlie when my kids were in school, they taught the kids in metric and decimal system. They had no problem learning a new system. It was the adults. We simply refused to learn a new system. There were some things that changed and stayed that way. Large bottles of soda, and gasoline. And the temps that are shown on banks and other buildings are shown in C. and F. We still use the F. system. When Japan first started to send imports of cars, they didn't like the idea of the wheel being on the right side. So they built factories in this country using our measuring system. It was much cheaper than teaching their workers and changing their whole factories. I guess we are just a stubborn lot and will not give in. :angel:
 
I understand the fear of learnng something new. In reality there is nothing new to learn. If you know how to count to 10 you already know metric system. It is that simple.
 
I find anything to do with numbers disconcerting. Conversion is fine if it works out neatly, but it mostly doesn't! I went to a recipe site recently that has a "converter" from cups to grams - but my scales don't measure down to decimal points.

This is really only a problem for baking, where the measurements need to be pretty specific. For anything else, I tend to just "wing it".

I am actually considering getting a measuring "cup" so I can use American baking recipes.
 
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