The FastDay Forum

I get very frustrated by the USA measurement system of "cups". It is OK if the recipe is ALL cups but when it says a "cup" of ground almonds and then speaks of tablespoons of this and that, I have no idea what weight measure that might equate to... or even what size cup! I have various mugs and cups in my house but no idea which size to use. Could someone enlighten me please?

[Betsysgr8]

A US cup is 8 ounces, pint is 16 ounces, quart 32 ounces and gallon is 64 ounces.

And if you buy proper measurement cups in the UK, they are about 2 teaspoons bigger than a US cup. It's 150g. I have found it does not make a difference to recipes although @Fatdog may beg to differ. Delia on line has some useful conversion tables. Sorry I struggle with cutting and pasting on iPad

Have a look at Delia On-Line. She gives equivalents in ounces and grams for lots of dry ingredients. In volume its 236mls.

[Betsysgr8]

Here's the link to Delia On-line's conversion tables http://www.deliaonline.com/conversion-tables.html

Thank you.... all of you xx

Have a look at Delia On-Line. She gives equivalents in ounces and grams for lots of dry ingredients. In volume its 236mls.

Aaaah no

The British, and Australian standard cup is 250ml. The US one is smaller. Same with tablespoons - in Aus and UK a tablespoon is 20ml but in the US it's 15.

And what is a 'stick' of butter?

A stick of butter is 113 grams, or 4 ounces to those of you in the UK.

(I cook a lot and so I do a lot of conversions, can you tell )

A British tbsp is 15ml, not 20.

That said, when you watch many cookery programmes, the cooks use big old fashioned serving spoon-like implements, which cannot be 15ml.

Then again, I consider myself an intuitive cook, so I kind of know when it's crucial... Usually it's not

Please note a cup of dry ingredients doesn't weigh the same! Cups are about volume, not weight. A cup of oats will weigh a lot less than a cup of flour. So you really need to to know the ingredient conversions.

When you talk about the US cup being 8oz it means fluid oz, not weight oz, and not only that but a US fluid oz is different from an imperial fluid oz. Fluid ounces are for volume not weight.

A US pint is 16 fl oz (473ml), but an imperial one is 20fl oz (568ml)

An imperial fl oz is 28.4ml but a US fl oz is 29.57ml

I thought this was a thread about bras....doh!

Ballerina x

@Ballerina, so did I.
The different in fluid ounces between UK and USA makes comparing prices of liquids awkward. For example pricing up petrol between UK and USA gallons you have to work it out in fluid ounces because UK pints are 4floz bigger than USA ones, which means 8 pints to a gallon would be a difference of 32 fl oz. That 2 pints difference for Americans and nearly 1 and a half pints for the UK. No wonder American cars 'seems' to be gas guzzlers to Brits, we are used to getting a higher milage per gallon out of our cars because our gallons are a LOT bigger than the American gallon.