Why are American recipes in cups?

But every single American cookbook or recipe site has measurements in cups and spoons. This makes sense for liquid ingredients. And most recipes are forgiving enough so that a few grams or ounces more or less don’t make a big difference. of butter = 4 ounces of butter.

Why are things measured in cups?

A measuring cup is a kitchen utensil used primarily to measure the volume of liquid or bulk solid cooking ingredients such as flour and sugar, especially for volumes from about 50 mL (2 fl oz) upwards. Measuring cups are also used to measure washing powder, liquid detergents and bleach for clothes washing.

When a recipe says a cup How much is that?

The cup is a cooking measure of volume, commonly associated with cooking and serving sizes. It is traditionally equal to one-half US pint (236.6 ml).

Do British measure in grams?

Now, despite the UK being a metric country, we’re by no means perfect, so you might still notice the occasional imperial reference (hello, trays and tins still measured in inches!) but when it comes to ingredients, it will always be grams and millilitres here.

What do Americans mean by a cup in baking?

Officially, a US Cup is 240ml (or 8.45 imperial fluid ounces.) This is slightly different from an Australian, Canadian and South African Cup which is 250ml. As long as you use the same cup for measuring out each of your ingredients, the proportions should work out the same.

Are American cups the same as UK cups?

The UK cups are 250mls and US cups are 240mls, so UK half cups are 125mls whereas US half cups are 120mls (quarter cups tend to be the same at 60mls). However for most recipes the difference is small and won’t affect the finished dish.

Do you write out your recipes with cup measurements?

I do write out most of the the recipes on my sites with cup measurements (as well as ounces and grams) for U.S. readers. I have memorized archaic U.S. only measurements like a stick of butter = 8 Tbs. of butter = 4 ounces of butter.

Why don’t we use cups instead of ounces to measure weight?

Because ‘cups’ is a measurement of volume and ‘ounces’ is a measurement of weight. In the U.S. we do not use metric measurement which has one descriptor for weight (gram) and one for volume (liter). Therefore we must distinguish between weight and volume measurement in some way.

Why are recipes measured in cups and spoons instead of grams?

But every single American cookbook or recipe site has measurements in cups and spoons. This makes sense for liquid ingredients. And most recipes are forgiving enough so that a few grams or ounces more or less don’t make a big difference.

What are the different types of measurement in recrecipes?

Recipes may have all three types of measurement. A recipe may call for 3 eggs (measurement by count), 250 mL of milk (measurement by volume), and 0.5 kg of cheese (measurement by weight). There are formal and informal rules governing which type of measurement should be used.