Converting US Measurements to UK...is it a right PITA?

[Ujjayi]

I'm considering buying a "healthy food" type cookbook from a US brand. However, the whole changing "cups" to metric measurements is putting me off as I don't want heaps of faff. As I understand it, cup size depends on item being measured, right? So a cup of sugar is different to a cup of butter? Dry ingredients are measured differently to wet?

I love cooking and baking and enjoy trying out new recipes but the concern of the faff of converting everything does put me off.

Any views? Advice?

Cups are measurements using volume rather than weight. Once you've got your head around that, it's easy - and Lakeland etc sell cup thingies.

Tbh there's enough online that will give you conversions that I think if the book looks good, you might as well go for it.

Thanks Hassled. I've looked at conversion charts online but it would be easier I think to use an actual measuring cup rather than looking up conversion for each separate ingredient.

I'm off to the Lakeland website!

Thanks again.

You can buy US measuring cups on Amazon UK.

Great, thank you.

I prefer cup measures by choice and am not American! SO easy! Hardly bother with scales just use standard cup, works fine and so much quicker.

I have a set of cups so that part of American recipes is easy enough. But their tablespoons are different to ours too (which I found out after following a recipe exactly and it tasted really salty) so that needs converting. And when it says 1lb of beef or 8oz can. It's not as simple as just getting a set of cups.

My Pioneer Woman books are currently collecting dust because it's a PITA.

Oh gosh. So I need US tablespoon measures too? The meat conversion is straightforward, no? 1lb of meat would be 450g? Not sure what a "can" is though?

Can = tin.

I'm not good at converting lb. I'm used to grams!