Cup conversion issues
Although I’m not a huge fan of her bare basics books, Delia Smith’s website is a very useful reference point. She has a helpful table of conversions here that are especially good when you’re trying to convert a recipe using American cup measurements to metric but, alas, there are no references to the New Zealand or Australian cup. I didn’t initially realise that these measurements were different – a cup is a cup is a cup, right? – but apparently not.
Apparently the US standard cup is smaller than the NZ/Australian one, about 240ml as opposed to 250ml (depending on who you’re reading). Also, just to really confuse matters, the tablespoon in Australia is 20ml instead of the international standard of 15ml! Unless you are baking with a very precise recipe (and mine tend not to be), these differences shouldn’t cause too many problems – after all, I’ve gotten away with using Kiwi cups for American recipes before this – but it’s just something to be aware of. I think the best way around it is to have two sets of cups. Then you’ve no excuse for bellyflopping cakes and the like!
Ya slacker — Still waiting for you to take the Starbucks Challenge 😉
At one point I was cooking a lot of North American recipes and sought out a graded cup measure just so that I didn’t have to keep converting in my head all the time. But after a while, it became automatic.Now, however, a couple of years down the track, I’ve forgotten it all! Why can’t the world go metric and have a SI for cups??? If Nigella can go metric ….
Oh this makes me laugh! For some reason, my mother’s kitchen was only stocked with metric cups, perhaps the only thing to be found at the hardware store in the small town on the US/Canadian border where my parents lived. After she died, my NON-COOK father immediately replaced them with US measuring cups/spoons. Oh the “making do” some of us do — and some of us can’t! Thanks for bringing back the memory! AK
And I thought I was the only one getting my head into knots about the cups issue! Alanna, I must admit that I have a distinct preference for the old imperial system – I still have my mother and grandmother’s formula for queencakes (4-4-6-2) off by heart! But, even I have to admit that times have changed and I’m now well used to metric. Coming to NZ and discovering firstly, that I had to use cups, and secondly, that they differ from American cups put me in a real quandary at first. I had the Boyfriend converting from metric to cups one night and I ended up with some rather strange measurements as a result. It’s difficult to be figuring out what .28 of a cup is! But the pudding (Nigella’s Sticky Toffee one) worked fine and I’ve not been too phased since. Have you ever had a disaster while converting from US to Australian cups, Plum?
green LA girl: I haven’t forgotten your challenge and, as a matter of fact, I took it last week. I just need to find five minutes to write it up now!
I never both with different cups but I do make sure I’ve got the correct tablesppon measurement.Re Starbucks challenge – I checked out my local Starbucks and they have Trade Me coffee advertised on the board. I refuse to patronise Starbucks but it is advertised there.
Mmmn, no it’s pretty much been okay and I wanted the cup more for the liquid measures eg 4 ounces of juice etc than the cup things. I hardly bake at all these days and that’s where I figure you need to be precise. Otherwise, it’s a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Remember, this is the girl who used her hands as scales recently!!
That’s how I do most of my cooking too – it’s just when it comes down to the baking that precise measurements come into play. Although, as I said above, I’ve gotten away with using NZ instead of American cups in a recipe for chocolate cake. I should try making it with both and seeing which turns out best!