American measures and their 'cup' sizes.

KazDub

Hi,
I'm going to be baking a cake for my little girl's 3rd birthday next week and I'd love to try something new. I've found some lovely recipes online but they're usually on American sites and use their weird measure system of cups.
I just don't get how you can have a cup of flour and then a cup of butter. How does that work?
The recipe that I found (through this forum) for frosting is this:
* 5 Tablespoons Flour
* 1 cup Milk
* 1 teaspoon Vanilla
* 1 cup Butter
* 1 cup Granulated Sugar (not Powdered Sugar!)

Ok, Tablespoons are self explanatory, but how can you convert whatever a cup of milk is into the same measure as a cup of flour.
Has anyone a cheat-sheet style conversion chart for these ways of measuring ingredients?
I'm just baffled!

D1976

Try

http://www.cuisinecuisine.com/FoodConversions.htm

KazDub

That looks good. Thanks.

MissFlitworth

You can pick up really cheap cup measures in Tesco (or I have a set I got for buttons in Ikea) It can be a really fun way to bake, takes all the hassle with weighing scales out of things

Sigma Force

Had to get hubby to work out the measurements using one of those conversion charts, confusled me too much.

@ MissFlitworth are they like those little sets of measuring spoons in Tesco ie look more like spoons than cups or are they actual cups

MissFlitworth

mine are like this, look like big spoons. Big one is 1 cup & half a cup (up to the red line), then tablespoon, teaspoon and 1/4 teaspoon

KazDub

How does that work in practical use though? Say for instance a cup of butter. Do you have to break up the butter and mould it down into the cup measure? Obviously a cup of flour would fill all the space it's poured in to, but I'm still confused on how you can have a cup of any kind of solid.

Miaireland

A cup of butter is 225g.

Sigma Force

lol KazDub it doesn't make sense to me either.
Mind you I must get some of those measuring spoons for sugar and flour etc. handy instead of stealing all of the teaspoons out of the drawer hubby never has any for his coffee

FTGFOP

In America a pound of butter comes as four individually wrapped 'sticks'. The wax paper that wrap each stick has markings showing you where to cut to get a teaspoon / fraction of a cup measurement of butter.

I'd say a cup of butter is two sticks or half a pound.

FTGFOP

KazDub

FTGFOP wrote: »

AHA!! Excellent, so a cup of butter is half a pound. They're fierce complicated, those Americans!

Thanks for that, I can sleep easy now.

washiskin

Euro 2 had a set of cup & spoon measures in stock for ...er...€2
Mad Pink and Fanta Orange coloured.

FTGFOP

KazDub wrote: »

AHA!! Excellent, so a cup of butter is half a pound. They're fierce complicated, those Americans!

Thanks for that, I can sleep easy now.

They do everything by volume, even an American who is a passionate about cooking wouldn't likely have a kitchen scales -unless they're a disciple of Alton Brown. If you see a kitchen scales in an American's home you could probably assume they're an amateur pâtissier or a drug dealler and be right most of the time!

edit:
"1 cup Granulated Sugar (not Powdered Sugar!)"
It's also why that matters in an American recipe. A cup of powdered sugar would weigh much more than a cup of granulated sugar due to the different crystals sizes, whereas if you just say 200g of sugar you don't have to worry what size the crystals are.