I'm all for respecting cultural differences, but...

[EscargotChic]

I love the internet as a source of recipes, but when they give ingredients US-style it drives me nuts. I think the one currently in the oven will be fine with approximate amounts which is good because it called for a pint of cherry tomatoes and a quarter of a cup chopped onion.
Not wanting to disrespect lovely US Mumsnetters, but seriously, kitchen scales are an amazing invention!

"All their recipes are terrible, but also why don't they make them easier for me to use" 😂

I’ve now eaten said meal, it was very nice, and apologies for posting what was meant to be a lighthearted thread (I was amused by tipping cherry tomatoes into a pint glass to try and guess the approximate quantity).
I think YouTube is better for US / Brit banter about cultural differences without bringing out the ‘it’s because you’re all really thick’ contingent.

We always used cups to measure in Australia and when I moved to the UK I bought a set of measuring cups without thinking about it. BUT- the standard cup sizes between the US vs Australia are actually slightly different. It can be confusing because you really do need to check the origin of the recipe to know of the measurements are the same or different due to country

I think Canadian cup sizes are also different. My lovely Canadian MIL has a Canadian cook book and has warned me about the difference

I don't think I've ever used an Australian recipe! But I imagine as it's all based on proportions that it wouldn't make a massive difference which cups you use?

There are plenty of conversion tools online but who is getting worked up about exact amounts of onion or tomatoes? Onions and tomatoes will all be different sizes or weights so cups is probably a better way to measure for consistency unless you prefer the hassle of weighing every single ingredient in situations where a bit of deviation won't make much difference. It's nice to have exact weights for baking and a guide for herbs and spices but apart from that surely cooking is about personal preference.

@EscargotChic with you OP! how do you measure a cup of butter? do you melt the butter till you have the cup measure full? what is a stick of butter? is it half inch wide or an inch??? do people not use kitchen scales in USA or even Oz??

4oz. So just over 100g. It’s the quantity butter is sold in in the States.

That's the way I think about cup measurements from wherever also!

Years ago, I made some biscuits and posted the recipe in a group. Got so many people ask me to convert it to cups.

I think cups or weight is more sensible based on the various sizes onions come in!

Amazed that so many people are prepared to admit on a public forum that they are so baffled by something so simple….

If I can't find a cup I usually grab a small mug and eye ball 1 cup/ 1/2 cup etc. I've literally never had it go wrong, I think because people are used to scales they really are reading too much into how precise you need to be. I use scales when I'm batch baking/cooking as it's easier for scaling up or down. Or obviously if I am using British British/European recipes but neither is better.

@MyRoseHam

I have always liked the Australian Women’s Weekly recipes for pretty salads and weirdly I love their Christmas sections as they have summery recipes for an Aussie Christmas that are transferable to a lot of situations. Donna Hay is also one to look out for!

I think it can make a difference when baking where there is a mix of dry ingredients using a cup measure, plus tbs and tsp measurements, and mls for wet ingredients. I’ve seen recipes that use all of these.

A stick of butter is 1/4 pound or 4 oz or about 113 gm. A pound is 453 gm. It's not hard. If you want to be good at baking you have to be able to do conversions anyway.

I only really have issues when they want you to measure something like butter in cups. Not a chance I'm cramming butter into a measuring cup and then trying to scrape it all out again.

Half a cup of chopped onions I'd just guess. Who can be bothered using extra utensils.

You can look up the equivalent weights. Some recipe websites csn do automatic conversions too

A cup of butter is 8 oz or 2 sticks or 226gms

Oh I love an old women's magazine for recipes. It's what I miss most about losing printed media. I'll keep an eye out online for recipes!

A stick of butter is half of one you’d get here so 125g rather then 250g. Or approximately that anyway.

They're pre marked in the states on the paper the butter comes in. So you can cut a piece off that equals 1/4 cup.

People are assuming that something is impractical because it doesn't work for them. But if your butter came pre marked you'd find it very easy and not have to clean your scale out after so the sugar didn't stick to it!

I live in the US and I have to agree 🫣🫣

Cups drives me nuts because it’s not the same measurement depending on the ingredient, and whether it’s tightly packed into the cup or loosely packed……and some things are just a pain in the arse to measure out in cups 🤷🏻‍♀️😂
”1 cup of butter, tightly packed” 🤨🤨🤨 I think not. Just tell me how many ounces and I have the perfectly pre-measured sticks of butter in the fridge!!!

That’s one thing I am going to miss when we come back to the U.K. - I bake a lot, and having the butter individually wrapped in 4oz sticks is a total game changer! The U.K. definitely needs to catch on to that

If you open up the pic you'll see the markings in spoons/cups and then the whole thing will have a weight on the box too

I don't mind using cups for most recipes but I get mystified occasionally. Two cups of French beans? The beans are longer than my cups are wide.

Australian tablespoons (20ml iirc) are a different size to UK tablespoons (15ml) for the PP musing on Oz measurements. So you are OK within a cup or tablespoon recipe but mixing them could be risky.

I miss cooking in lbs and ozs, I'm sad that newer Cookbooks are only in grams now.

I took cultural differences was meant to be a bit tongue in cheek.
I thought for an embarrassing long length of time that Zucchini was some exotic veg we don't have here. Had to make do with courgette.😥