US translation needed...

[SoupDragon]

Can anyone tell me what "all purpose flour" and "shortening" are in English??

monkey, I know just what you mean, American recipes seem to use cups for entirely inappropriate substances!

I have some American measuring cups but agree that for things like squash they don't help at all.

Otherwise...an American pint is 16 fl oz, or 4/5 of a UK pint, and an American cup is half of that or 8 fl oz. Which is fine for fluids but not for anything else, as I'm not sure if the volume implied for fluids can also be used for solids.

Bet that doesn't help at all!

I must say, I love the Cup Method for stuff like flour and liquids but I've never grasped its use for butter either.

I've not tried out the cinnamon graham recipe yet but I do now have my Cookeen and stoneground wholewheat flour.

I completely agree with you on the cups vs. weight measurement issue. It's really easy to muck up a recipe by measuring wrong.

An easy way to measure solid ingredients like butter, shortening or even squash is with water displacement. For example, if you want to measure 1 cup butter but it is not in stick form: Use a nice big measureing cup (a 2 cup measure or even better, a 4 cup). Fill the measuring cup with one cup water. Progressively add chunks of butter until the water level rises to the 2 cup mark. The mass of the solid displaces the water and shows you how much solid you've got. Then just dump out the water and you've got your measurement.

A four pound ( I know...you don't use pounds, sorry) sugar pumpkin or piece of a big pumpkin will yield about 3 cups cooked and pureed pumpkin.

Oh, we do use pounds. We just can't buy food weighed in them!

And I like the displacement method - never would have thought of that myself. thanks!

If you go to allrecipes.com (sorry, can't do links), and type in Graham crackers, you'll get 2 recipes shown.

Not sure how similar they are to the other recipes, but on that site, you can ask it to convert from american measures to metric. OK, so I prefer Imperial, but I'm more at home with grammes than sticks of butter and cups!

Have done several recipes from that site, and they're good.

Sorry Soupdragon! Although I am slowly picking things up, but I still labor under a few misconceptions such as pounds being completely rejected in favor of kilograms, etc. Very stupid, I know. I'm working on expanding I love talking to everyone here!

thanks guys, but i'm not sure I'm any closer to being able to buy my pumpkin...!

I agree cup measuremnts are fine for maybe pasta, but even flour is a pain - my cup won't fit in my flour tub, so I have to spoon it out into the cup, then level it off - I end up with more on the bench, The water displacement probably works fantastically, but give me my electronic scales any day of the week.

Don't apologise Corbin - a lot of us are a bit schizophrenic about weights and measures. While I was taught metric at school, my Mum taught me to cook using imperial measures. Most recipe books contain both measures and I instinctively stick to the pounds and ounces.

I'm completely schizo with regard to weights and measures. I prefer pounds & ounces and centimetres, metres & miles!!

Monkey, Corbin says that a 4lb pumpkin (or chunk of pumpkin) = 3 cups of cooked & pureed pumpkin. So 1 cup = approx 1lb 5oz of uncooked pumpkin. Or approx 605g. Multiply these by the X numbers of cups your recipe says and that's how much raw pumpkin you need to buy, cook and puree.
See, clear as mud!

here is a conversion site which throws in the added complication of Australian cups!! However, it does convert cups of butter to grams which is helpful.

Glee, sorry, forgot to reply to your reply to me, it is nice to have you here too!

We have some ex-pat friends in California, one lot in LA (Manhattan Beach) and one in SF - well, suburbs, Ellen City I think? They love it.

thank you soupdragon for conversion link..soooo easy and my sister lent me her australian women weekly cook books and everything is in cups

Can anyone tell me what Canola oil is??

Canola - just did a Google search and it's a type of oilseed (see here . This site says it's wonderful, but another was saying that it's bad for you, so beware if you do use it!

I just did a Google search too - quite amazing! I think I'll use a different oil instead.

Canola is a form of rapeseed that was developed in Canada, hence the Can part of the name. As rapeseed oil isn't used for human consumption there is concern that canola oil may also be a problem. But I think that it has now been approved by most countries and a lot of research done, and the health benefits look quite impressive. Not seen it in the supemarkets here, but then haven't looked for it either.

Bit slow writing that, so you've already found all the info!

I think Sainsbury's had Rapeseed oil but not specifically Canola. I plumped for corn oil when guessing yesterday. I doubt it makes much difference!

On the same subject, can I ask what Corn Starch is? Is it Corn Flour?

Yes

whellid,

"Baby loves shortening shortening
Baby loves shortening shortening bread!"

Janh, that's what one of the websites said about Raposeed oil. Odd as I'd seen rapseed oil in Sainsbury's...

Well, I am completely flummoxed. (No change there then.)

Rapeseed oil is supposedly one of the healthiest oils there is - better than sunflower or soya - recommended by Which? magazine! In Sainsburys it isn't labelled as such though - just as "pure vegetable oil" but with a picture of the rape flowers on the front and 100% rapeseed oil as the only ingredient on the back - I always wondered why!

Fat content per 100ml 91.7g : saturates 6.3g, mono-unsaturates 54.4g (that's the good bit I think), poly unsaturates 26.9g. (That doesn't add up mind you.)

This isn't a GM issue, is it?

Ahhh - just googled myself and found this: