Measuring cups with actual cups as a measure

[inkstainedwretch]

I'm new to England (from Canada) and have been having trouble finding a measuring cup that lists cups as a measurement (as opposed to ml or pints), whether metric (250 ml) or imperial. What I would really love to have would be a set of nesting cups representing units such as 1/4 cup, 1/3 cup, etc. Anybody know where I could find something like that? Seems strange to me that in a country where people use "stone" as units of weight, that cups seem not be used much in cooking -- or am I just not looking in the right places?

You'll be hard pressed. Maybe order them from overseas?
Or get a set of weighing scales and embrace our way
I tried to make toffee and found one of those cup of this half cup of that recipes. Total disaster. I just used a cup!
I guess it doesn't work that way because I ended up with a tray of gloop!

Scales and a jug that should read.

Lakeland have them www.lakeland.co.uk/15636/Colourworks-4-Measuring-Cups

I got mine in Asda

I bought some in Waitrose a while ago.

I have a set of measuring cups from morrisons (4 years ago) and a measuring cup (jug) that shows cup measures as well as ml, from wilkinsons. Or you could just ebay or amazon it.
www.ebay.co.uk/bhp/measuring-spoons-cups
cups/products

Sorry it looks likely second link didn't show up.

cups/products

You could also get someone to buy them at dollarama and mail them to you!

We've got a couple - pretty sure we just picked up at a supermarket. I'd have thought all big supermarkets, wilkos, the range etc would have them surely? If not there's always amazon.

I got mine in asda but I'm sure I've seen them in tesco.

The trouble with measuring dry ingredients by volume is that you can be very variable in how much you actually use.

Wet ingredients by volume, dry ingredients by weight. (actually wet ingredients by weight works pretty well too)

I got mine in Wilkos.

Yep, all over the place, as people have said.
Just make sure, if your using canadian cook books, you get the right size cups - Australian and US are different sizes

Problem with using cups is that a cup in the US is 225ml and in the UK is 250ml - I have several sets from Wilkos, John Lewis and independent cook shops. I use a lot of American recipes but I hate cup measurements, they lack logic - a cup of ground beef, a cup of grated carrots for example - these things are easier weighed - not bothered about whether it's metric or imperial.

I often wonder why the Americans/Canadians have not converted to using a set of scales it's much more accurate.

Amazon

Thank you all so much! Finally located some at Asda.

I find that it's not a problem to use American vs metric cups as long as you stick to one for the whole recipe. And it's less of a pain than weighing everything!

I was posting to remind you north American and UK cups are a different size but I see someone has caught that. Yes isn't a problem when you are consistent but problematic when you introduce non cup things like eggs.

Are Canadian and UK eggs the same size?

Yes. Provided they are all chicken as opposed to a mixture of duck/turkey.
Sorry.
But say a medium egg weighs (Average) 58g and the recipe calls for 2 med eggs with 3 US cups flour: if you use UK cups, your proportions of egg to flour will be all wrong.

And it depends what way you pack the flour in the cup too - using cups the weight of your flour can vary by as much as 25% which can be a bit of a problem.

That's why cups are just wrong - dry ingredients should be measured by weight not volume.

Correction to Melty's suggestion that UK and Canadian eggs are the same size. They are not.

A UK Medium egg (standard for UK recipes) straddles the boundary between what is called a Medium or a Large egg in Canada or the USA (and an Extra Large in Australia).

Egg Sizes			
			
UK	  /      US-Canada /	Australia	  / N. Zealand

70gm Very Large / Jumbo /Jumbo / 8
65gm Large / V. Large (XL) / Extra Large / 7/8
60gm Medium / Large / Extra Large 7
50gm Medium / Medium / Large / 6

I can't set it out in an easily read table here, so please use the forward slashes / as line breaks. I hope that this is helpful.

Do you know, I had no idea. That will teach me to be cheeky. :)
Thanks 4rmerly known as.

Thats useful for US recipes.