4 ms·

Even worse when you do find the recipe it uses some crazy measuring system! What is one "cup" of flour? It obviously depends on how fine the flour is. Use g

Even worse when you do find the recipe it uses some crazy measuring system! What is one "cup" of flour? It obviously depends on how fine the flour is. Use grams! Use ounces! But above all use some kind of real measurement!

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
arpa 7y ago
Psst, dude, i recently found out there are conversion tables for Freedom Units!
umvi 7y ago
Most Americans don't have a kitchen scale
- stevekemp 7y ago
  I know that different cultures are different, but I always think of Americans as being (kitchen) gadget-obsessed. Maybe I've watched too many infomercials and soaps. I've reached a point where I know Americans don't have (electric) kettles, but a scale seems like a necessity for anybody who cooks. (I guess there are lot of people, American, or otherwise, who just don't cook. So I'd understand in that case. But cooking without a scale just seems surprising. Even where I come from a grew up with a balance-scale with brass weights. Never hugely accurate, but always available.)
  - umvi 7y ago
    It's because Americans mainly cook with volumes ("1 cup flour") and not masses ("100g flour"). Just look at any American recipe book - it will use volumes instead of weights.
  - richjdsmith 7y ago
    Wait, Canadian here, American's don't have electric kettles?
    - stevekemp 7y ago
      Apparently they're unusual and not at all common. People seem to prefer to use the kinda old-fashioned manual kettles you place on the top of a stove.
83 7y ago
Yeah, cups of flour annoy me to no end. The difference between a cup of packed down flour in the bag vs flour that's been sifted is something like 30% by my rough estimate.
Spivak 7y ago
> What is one "cup" of flour? 8 fl oz of flour spooned into the measuring cup or 4.5 oz. by weight. I'm not at all trying to be snarky here. Like any other specialization people who cook have organic terminology that is useful to the in-group but confusing to the out-group. A /24 isn't the same as a class C network but we all know what is being conveyed. And you'll get much more accurate measurements of small quantities measuring by volume instead of weight since kitchen scales aren't that accurate. Knowing that 0.25 tsp is about a gram for just about any granular thing will probably do better than your scale. It also helps convey the sig figs in recipe. Very few recipes have a tolerance of 1 g. Even finicky bread doesn't get that accurate so it's ridiculous when some bloggers write something like 113 g when without question the recipe was originally formulated to be 4.0 oz and you just messed up the conveyed tolerances by blindly converting.
- stevekemp 7y ago
  I understand how to make bread, bakers-percentages, etc. It's just that when it comes to flour a cup is a terrible measurement, due to the way it packs and the different volume involved in various varieties/types of flour. Most of the time when I'm cooking and I see an American recipe I just google the conversion; a cup of milk is easy to deal with. Just a minor irritation most of the time, but for some things it matters.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

arpa 7y ago

Psst, dude, i recently found out there are conversion tables for Freedom Units!

umvi 7y ago

Most Americans don't have a kitchen scale

stevekemp 7y ago
I know that different cultures are different, but I always think of Americans as being (kitchen) gadget-obsessed. Maybe I've watched too many infomercials and soaps. I've reached a point where I know Americans don't have (electric) kettles, but a scale seems like a necessity for anybody who cooks. (I guess there are lot of people, American, or otherwise, who just don't cook. So I'd understand in that case. But cooking without a scale just seems surprising. Even where I come from a grew up with a balance-scale with brass weights. Never hugely accurate, but always available.)
- umvi 7y ago
  It's because Americans mainly cook with volumes ("1 cup flour") and not masses ("100g flour"). Just look at any American recipe book - it will use volumes instead of weights.
- richjdsmith 7y ago
  Wait, Canadian here, American's don't have electric kettles?
  - stevekemp 7y ago
    Apparently they're unusual and not at all common. People seem to prefer to use the kinda old-fashioned manual kettles you place on the top of a stove.

83 7y ago

Yeah, cups of flour annoy me to no end. The difference between a cup of packed down flour in the bag vs flour that's been sifted is something like 30% by my rough estimate.

Spivak 7y ago

> What is one "cup" of flour? 8 fl oz of flour spooned into the measuring cup or 4.5 oz. by weight. I'm not at all trying to be snarky here. Like any other specialization people who cook have organic terminology that is useful to the in-group but confusing to the out-group. A /24 isn't the same as a class C network but we all know what is being conveyed. And you'll get much more accurate measurements of small quantities measuring by volume instead of weight since kitchen scales aren't that accurate. Knowing that 0.25 tsp is about a gram for just about any granular thing will probably do better than your scale. It also helps convey the sig figs in recipe. Very few recipes have a tolerance of 1 g. Even finicky bread doesn't get that accurate so it's ridiculous when some bloggers write something like 113 g when without question the recipe was originally formulated to be 4.0 oz and you just messed up the conveyed tolerances by blindly converting.

stevekemp 7y ago
I understand how to make bread, bakers-percentages, etc. It's just that when it comes to flour a cup is a terrible measurement, due to the way it packs and the different volume involved in various varieties/types of flour. Most of the time when I'm cooking and I see an American recipe I just google the conversion; a cup of milk is easy to deal with. Just a minor irritation most of the time, but for some things it matters.