measuring ingredients in cups

[keepingmum121]

I have two questions:

1. Is a 'cup' the same size in UK and USA?
2. How on earth do you measure something like chocolate or butter in cups? Are you supposed to melt it before measuring?

I hope someone can answer these...

American cups are a different size. Bloody rubbish way to measure stuff - cup of carrots? Flour - always packs a cup differently. Check out online conversion tools but in general for baking recipes where accuracy is needed recipes with weights will tend to be more reliable.

Thank you. Even the conversions are a bit confusing, especially if the recipe doesn't specify whether the cups are American or not.

I agree - it is a rubbish way to measure ingredients!!

Cups are an inaccurate way of measuring, but if you don't have scales (as the early settlers across the pond probably didn't) it is better than nothing. They have just developed recipes along that route.The lack of symbiosis across the Atlantic also explains why they can't spell words like colour, neighbour or aluminium properly, but that doesn't matter here.

In fact, although there is a difference between the UK cup and the US cup, it is only around 1.5% (US 236.5ml, UK 240ml). The problem comes if you use a European metric cup of 250ml.

Probably the biggest problem with cross cultural recipes is egg sizes. A UK Medium is the standard egg size for UK recipes, but a UK Medium egg could be an Australian Large egg (or Extra Large) or an American/Canadian Large egg. If you use a UK Large egg, the recipe will have too much egg in it and be too liquid.