question for British people

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  • EmmaKarney
    EmmaKarney Posts: 690 Member
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    I measure most things on a digital kitchen scale (e.g. a 50g portion of granola - otherwise I'd just keep on pouring!)

    But after a while you just get used to doing it by eye
  • EmmaKarney
    EmmaKarney Posts: 690 Member
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    I use scales, because I have no idea what a "cup" measurement is.

    Also, found out that what I was using as a "tablespoon" was actually a much larger dessert spoon. God damn spoons. Y U come in so many sizes and shapes?

    This is incorrect. A tablespoon is around 15mls, a dessert spoon is around 10mls & a teaspoon is around 5mls. Have another look at your spoons!

    She said a tablespoon was larger than a dessert spoon!
  • boboff
    boboff Posts: 129 Member
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    Also you need to remember what you are doing.

    If you want to know what you are eating in g's for breakfast you need scales.

    If you are making a cake you can get away with cups, as long as you stick broadly to the ratios involved, ie 100g flour, 200g sugar, you will get away with one cup and 2 cups, etc.

    Not always, but mainly!
  • Catlady87
    Catlady87 Posts: 302 Member
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    I use scales - before MFP it was usually only for baking, where its important to have accurate measurements. Now, as part of calorie counting I need to know how much of something I'm eating.
    When I search for recipes I'm instantly turned off by recipes with "cups" in them. I want to know in grams or even lbs and oz.
  • Fatandfifty3
    Fatandfifty3 Posts: 419 Member
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    I'm a cook and I'm British. I find recipes come in all sorts of measurement scales. I find cups as a measure a bit hit and miss. I do have a conversion chart I pulled out of a Waitrose magazine that converts cups to ounces to grammes. Unfortunately there isn't one online. I use a digital scale. I prefer grammes as it easier to divide and multiply recipes that way.

    Someone mentioned Grandma's recipe measurements. I have a good one-"Take half a piece if butter the size of a walnut...." So how much is that exactly???
  • neandermagnon
    neandermagnon Posts: 7,436 Member
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    dear British people,

    In British cook books, and even here on MFP, when you talk about food you use grams. So does everyone have a kitchen scale, or do you just know off the top of your head how many grams are in standard measures like one cup of flour?

    everyone has a kitchen scale

    my mum has one that's actually like a balance with little weights you put on one side. It's probably antique. before I had my digital one, I had one where you put the food in the tray at the top and the pointy hand pointed at the weight, i.e. mechanical, but not archaic like my mum's one.

    My mum's one weighs in ounces, although she has a few gram weights as well. My one has grams and ounces and lbs on it.

    also spoons, i.e. teaspoon (5ml) and tablespoon (15ml)

    also measuring jugs, which are in ml and fluid ounces. occasionally you get the with cups

    When I first came across cups, it confused me totally.... because I didn't know whether it meant a tea cup, a child's beaker, a mug, or what.... (I know now...)
  • LadyRoff
    LadyRoff Posts: 56 Member
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    Scales and measure in grams, i have no idea about cups, although the new scales i bought use this measurements also
  • BubblesxDear
    BubblesxDear Posts: 12
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    I have diet scales as I had no idea what grams were in what.
  • ShreddedTweet
    ShreddedTweet Posts: 1,326 Member
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    Yep, I have a kitchen scales since I first moved out of home, one of the first things I bought - it's so necessary. This whole 'cup' business pees me off, grams/ounces etc I can work with!
  • neandermagnon
    neandermagnon Posts: 7,436 Member
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    You think we're weird using grams, we think you're weird using cups!

    ^^^^ this, very very very this!!
  • hubbart25
    hubbart25 Posts: 15 Member
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    Norfolk uk

    I couldn't live with out my scales at the moment. I measure all my food so it is completely accurate to heat I put in mfp.

    I don't use recipes when it uses cups.
  • AmandaPandah
    AmandaPandah Posts: 222 Member
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    Swedish here! We use grams as well, and I've got a kitchen scale. Though we usually measure in decilitre, centilitre, millilitre. A measuring "kit" would have a dl measure, half a dl, tablespoon, teaspoon, and a ml.
  • twelfty
    twelfty Posts: 576 Member
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    dear British people,

    In British cook books, and even here on MFP, when you talk about food you use grams. So does everyone have a kitchen scale, or do you just know off the top of your head how many grams are in standard measures like one cup of flour?

    americans can't even agree what a cup is, i wouldn't enter into a recipe with cups i'd just look for an alternative that works with weight in lbs or grams

    and yeah pretty much everyone has scales

    also just a side note say you get a recipe with chunks of apple, and it says a cup full of chunks of apples, for a start you don't know how big the chunks are, a 1" chunk filled cup will very likely be less than a 1/4" chunk filled cup due to the fact you'll be left with pockets where if you weight it you'll get the same
  • wifealiciousness
    wifealiciousness Posts: 179 Member
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    dear British people,

    In British cook books, and even here on MFP, when you talk about food you use grams. So does everyone have a kitchen scale, or do you just know off the top of your head how many grams are in standard measures like one cup of flour?

    Dear American person, did you not think that seeing as we don't use cups, a "cup" might not be a standard measure here......?

    Dear American person, as everything weighs different amounts, why do you measure in volume? A cup of flour is different to a cup of rice, which is different to a cup of grated cheese.

    Where you have a set of cups that measure fluid ounces and volume, we have one scale which we measure everything on. Easy.
  • MsPudding
    MsPudding Posts: 562 Member
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    Another Brit and I've never been into a kitchen that didn't have a set of scales. I use digital metric/imperial ones with a TARE function so that I don't have to weigh everything that's going into the same dish in separate bowls.

    I do also have a set of US cups so that I don't have to bother with conversions on American recipes however.
  • H1L5
    H1L5 Posts: 55 Member
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    I use scales. I get really frustrated when I find a good recipe and it uses cups! I don't want to risk using cups because I don't know if its a tea cup or a mug or a coffee cup. What's a cup?
  • pangy1958
    pangy1958 Posts: 151 Member
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    Here in Britain we mostly use grams or ounces. The cup measurement seems to be mainly USA & Canada.
    Most English cook books use metric measure older ones use the ounces.
  • Deipneus
    Deipneus Posts: 1,862 Member
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    U.S. citizen here. As a kid I was taught in school that we would be converting to metrics along with the rest of the world and that we better get used to it. I'm 60 and I'm still waiting. Cups, spoons, pounds... it's crazy.
  • Jen_ht
    Jen_ht Posts: 99 Member
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    Cups are very misleading! I use either grams or ounces. And one recipe I have for a delectable apple cake in fact uses both in one recipe...but this recipe was handed down to me and isn't in a book so that's why!

    When I first read a recipe using 'cups' I thought you could use like a regular coffee mug...I think you can but in order to be more accurate you should have a proper measuring cup, shouldn't you?
  • neanderthin
    neanderthin Posts: 10,018 Member
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    Here in Britain we mostly use grams or ounces. The cup measurement seems to be mainly USA & Canada.
    Most English cook books use metric measure older ones use the ounces.
    Canada is metric and we just eyeball everything, because we're, just better. j/k :happy:

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