Thread 15 - TalkLair: “I Can't Lie To You About Your Chances, But... You Have My Sympathies.”

[Kucinghitam]

(Previous thread 14).

Autumn seems to have gone straight into winter. It's cold, wet and windy. In the TalkLair, the hearth is glowing, the walls covered in dubious artwork, books by non-approved authors line the shelves, rugs are down on the floors (and assorted pets curled up on them). The denizens of the lair are a welcoming bunch though, always eager for general chit-chat on all manner of topics.

We just won’t mention the gnawed bones of our prey over there in the corner of the cave…

I have a set of measuring cups but bought here rather than the US and I think that means they’re slightly different sizes and they’re weirdly slightly off in terms of volume. So 250ml, 125ml, 80ml and 60ml for a full, half, third and quarter cup. I do measure liquid by volume but weighing things makes much more sense to me, especially for baking which is all about weight ratios.

Oh and I have heard of beignets and think they look like something I’d be very much in favour of but don’t think I’ve ever eaten one.

Generally speaking it doesn't matter if such ingredients are a bit more or a bit less - roughly OK is good enough.

I don't think the size of a cup matters, because it's proportional by volume - mine (cheapo plastic) are metric, and if some recipe calls for 100ml of whatever I just use the 85ml one and add a bit!

In an emergency (US recipe), I get out the Australian Women's Weekly cake cookbook and refer to their fabulous conversion chart, which also tells you "when we say an egg, we mean a large one that weighs about x grams".

The cup size becomes approximate with mine because the cup and half cup are based in a 250ml cup but the quarter and third of a cup are based on a 240ml cup which, while not very different, just seems a bit daft.

So it's even madder than I thought! Truth is, cups offer zero advantages over a set of scales.

I've heard of beignets but not had one.

The cups thing is a bit mad. I thought it was just a different way of measuring, which to an extent it is, but the other day I was reading a US recipe and I wish I could remember where because it was mad. There were different cup sizes but they were all just on the recipe as "one cup". I can't remember how I knew that they should be different sizes, probably something in the "this is how you cook it" part of the recipe. Anyway, reading that made me realise I'd never understand cups if I lived to be a thousand without my brain esploding. So I closed the recipe down and tried to forget I'd ever seen it.

I assume the cup thing is standard here because of the history of immigrants and pioneers needing to have something very portable and unfussy. I weigh things when weight is important, as with baking, but often the weight is no big deal.

Apparently that was indeed the thinking of Fannie Farmer, who was a driving force behind the use of cups.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boston_Cooking-School_Cook_Book

The idea of cups is fine and we measure all sorts of things by volume using spoons but where precision is needed weighing stuff is more accurate especially with a good set of digital scales. I was looking at a recipe recently that gave US measurements as well as weights and the recipe writer - who was American, so from the tradition of cups - suggested that it was best to weigh the ingredients. It was a cake recipe though and baking benefits from precision.

One positive of the American system is that, I assume, there won’t have been the same shrinkflation that we’ve had for butter with some brands cutting pack sizes from 250g to 200g. If recipes are based on a fixed size for a stick of butter (a baffling concept in itself, not least because I can’t remember what a stick of butter looks like even though I’ve spent a fair bit of time in the US), quietly making that 20% smaller would ruin a lot of cakes.

While I'm sure that weighing is better, I've spent my life using a Tala dry measure with perfectly satisfactory results, including for sponge cakes and souffles.

I've seen pictures of the way sticks of butter are divided and think it brilliant, but Kerrygold and Lidl's own brand Irish butter both have 25 grams at a time marked off on the side of the block, and I find that works well.

Again, even for souffles. It's a while since I've done one, maybe this will be the week.

Ooh, I used to have a Tala dry measure - one of the blue 1950s ones, which I liberated from my mother's kitchen and used for years. I wonder what happened to it.

Butter here generally has 50g marks but I can’t remember what that’s changed to on brands that now come in 200g packs.

For a basic cake mix I start by weighing the eggs, then it’s 1:1:1:1 for eggs, flour, sugar and butter. I use 3:2:1 for flour, butter and sugar to start a crumble mix (before adding chopped hazelnuts and a couple of goodly handfuls of oats). I have no clear idea how any of that translates to volumes. It’s just what each of us is used to really though.

Right now I should be at Old Trafford, but in fact I'm sitting in front of the TV to watch the Grand Final; despite having a ticket, I just wasn't feeling it this year, with the lousy weather, and the issues with parking. The train, which ought to be the easy option, doesn't look a realistic, with cancellations and station closures. Can't wait to see the actual game, but getting there and back... suddenly sitting in the comfort of my own home, drinking a decent beer in front of the fire, started to seem a more appealing option! So I lashed out 15 quid on a day-pass for Sky Sports.

I've never measured crumble by any method other than eye. Same for souffles. Equal weights for the default cake recipe.

If the weather is anywhere like here, home is definitely the best option. We keep having short but very heavy blasts of hail.

There was hail in Manchester, but not here.

Yay for the result, Mach!

I’ve never made a soufflé. I really should try!

I've only just got over the shock of being misgendered on another thread, and now this? 😛

I also use the "weigh your eggs" 1-1-1-1 method for a Victoria sponge and the 3-2-1 method for crumble. Both work well for me.

We had a beautiful day today. The weather was perfect autumn - clear blue sky, no humidity, cool but not cold. DH wanted to go out for a leaf-peeping drive, and I wanted to go to the Ogunquit Museum of American Art, so we combined out wishes and did both. The museum has a beautiful sculpture garden outside it, and is on the edge of a rocky cliff overlooking the sea - the first thing you see when you come in through the doors is an enormous full wall glass window, as if the view was part of the art. We had brunch at a diner - egg, beans, toast and ham, and we shared a blueberry pancake with maple syrup, opposite a garden centre with an awful lot of pumpkins for sale - and had an ice cream sundae on the way home. Oddly, neither of us feel up to eating any dinner!

The pumpkins and the view!

Oh and I was thinking of you watching the news just now @duc748 - well done your lot!