I love to bake and the metric system is a total PITA for baking.
Which recipe is easier to remember??
U.S. Version 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon salt 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened 3/4 cup granulated sugar 3/4 cup packed brown sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 2 large eggs 2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) Chocolate Chips
Metric Version 315 grams plain flour 5 ml baking soda 5 ml salt 220 grams butter (softened) 150 grams sugar 165 grams brown sugar 5 ml vanilla extract 100 grams eggs 350 grams semi-sweet chocolate morsels
I'll keep my tsp, tbsp, and cups thank you very much! I'm not down with having to weigh my ingredients when I bake.
Well, the key difference here is mass vs volume; volume probably is easier to estimate. I really can't imagine most recipes saying 100 mg of eggs vs 2 large eggs. I didn't realize that brown sugar was 10% denser than white, though - interesting!
ETA the mass vs volume is for the ingredients given in grams. I consider 5 mL to be just as easy as 1 tsp.
In some cookie recipes you have to pack down your brown sugar so there is actually more of it in 3/4 cup than white sugar and that is where the difference comes from (mine usually ends up with an additional 1/4 cup packed in it) I've even seen recipes that require you to pack down the flour when measuring.
I just like the fact that when I bake using a basic cookie recipe I can use exactly 2 measuring devices- 1 tsp and a 3/4 cup (3/4 x 3 = 2 1/4 cup...yay elementary school fractions!) I don't have to mess around with a scale and a mini shot glass with miniscule print that I can barely read!
The egg thing annoys me to no end. I have all these amazing German and Croatian dessert cookbooks and the recipes with eggs are listed in grams. Just tell me how many eggs to use damnit!! Baking is relaxing for me; I don't want it to turn into some weird math class with equations.
My bestie in Zagreb had a set of US measuring cups and spoons and her mom stole them. She thinks they are great for cooking since she can just scoop and dump and there is no weighing of dry items.
Post by mrsukyankee on Aug 13, 2015 2:54:02 GMT -5
Funny fact - we use the metric system over here but our roads are in miles. Yup. And people do still talk about weighing themselves by stone = 14 lb. I prefer the metric system for baking/cooking and I've finally gotten used to celcius (I know what is cold, warm & hot for me but couldn't tell you exact degree fahrenheit with it- though used to use double celsius and add 30, which does get you close). But as I don't live in the US, I guess I don't really have a say in this...but I do think it's a system that makes more sense than much of the US system.
And weighing for baking is so much easier than you'd ever think - it makes more sense and is more accurate. I don't mess up baking in the same way I used to.
Funny fact - we use the metric system over here but our roads are in miles. Yup. And people do still talk about weighing themselves by stone = 14 lb. I prefer the metric system for baking/cooking and I've finally gotten used to celcius (I know what is cold, warm & hot for me but couldn't tell you exact degree fahrenheit with it- though used to use double celsius and add 30, which does get you close). But as I don't live in the US, I guess I don't really have a say in this...but I do think it's a system that makes more sense than much of the US system.
And weighing for baking is so much easier than you'd ever think - it makes more sense and is more accurate. I don't mess up baking in the same way I used to.
When we saw gas prices here, we thought, "oh, that's not bad." It didn't occur to us that the prices were for a litre, so multiply by 4.5. Silly Americans.
I vote no on the metric system because it's the tool of the devil.
Funny fact - we use the metric system over here but our roads are in miles. Yup. And people do still talk about weighing themselves by stone = 14 lb. I prefer the metric system for baking/cooking and I've finally gotten used to celcius (I know what is cold, warm & hot for me but couldn't tell you exact degree fahrenheit with it- though used to use double celsius and add 30, which does get you close). But as I don't live in the US, I guess I don't really have a say in this...but I do think it's a system that makes more sense than much of the US system.
And weighing for baking is so much easier than you'd ever think - it makes more sense and is more accurate. I don't mess up baking in the same way I used to.
My awesome Mexican grandma taught me how to bake. Some of her old recipes don't even use real measurements (pinches, handfuls, etc) I can even change up a recipe for baking and not screw it up which isn't supposed to work because its chemistry.
So what's the deal with oven temps in the UK? I see recipes that will say things like 2 or 3 for the temp.
I'll keep my mpgs.... 30 miles to the gallon sounds better than 5-7 miles to the liter!
So what's the deal with oven temps in the UK? I see recipes that will say things like 2 or 3 for the temp.
I'll keep my mpgs.... 30 miles to the gallon sounds better than 5-7 miles to the liter!
Gas mark is an old fashioned thing but some ovens still do have this. It's basically 25 degree F in difference between each gas mark. Gas mark 2 would be 300F or 150C. Most of our ovens are in Celsius.
Well, the key difference here is mass vs volume; volume probably is easier to estimate. I really can't imagine most recipes saying 100 mg of eggs vs 2 large eggs. I didn't realize that brown sugar was 10% denser than white, though - interesting!
ETA the mass vs volume is for the ingredients given in grams. I consider 5 mL to be just as easy as 1 tsp.
In some cookie recipes you have to pack down your brown sugar so there is actually more of it in 3/4 cup than white sugar and that is where the difference comes from (mine usually ends up with an additional 1/4 cup packed in it) Â I've even seen recipes that require you to pack down the flour when measuring.
I just like the fact that when I bake using a basic cookie recipe I can use exactly 2 measuring devices- 1 tsp and a 3/4 cup (3/4 x 3 = 2 1/4 cup...yay elementary school fractions!) Â I don't have to mess around with a scale and a mini shot glass with miniscule print that I can barely read! Â
The egg thing annoys me to no end. Â I have all these amazing German and Croatian dessert cookbooks and the recipes with eggs are listed in grams. Â Just tell me how many eggs to use damnit!! Â Baking is relaxing for me; I don't want it to turn into some weird math class with equations.
My bestie in Zagreb had a set of US measuring cups and spoons and her mom stole them. Â She thinks they are great for cooking since she can just scoop and dump and there is no weighing of dry items. Â
So I'm in Sweden where we use metric. However for baking/cooking we sort of have our own version. Most recipes would be in deciliters (dl) so it would be something like: 2 dl flour 1.5 dl sugar
Deciliters are derived from the metric system though not a formally recognised unit. 1 dl = 0.1 l or 100 ml so I usually just write it in ml whenever I give someone a recipe.
We have measuring sets just like you talk about though they are 1 dl, 0.5 dl, 1 tbl (15 ml) and 1 tsp (5 ml)
A Swedish reciepe would say 1 egg or 5 eggs not grams or ml. The only thing we measure by weight is butter - I always scratch my head when trying to figure out 1/2 cup of butter. Like do I just show the butter in to the cup??
r]A Swedish reciepe would say 1 egg or 5 eggs not grams or ml. The only thing we measure by weight is butter - I always scratch my head when trying to figure out 1/2 cup of butter. Like do I just show the butter in to the cup??
Butter comes in sticks that have the measurements printed onto the wrapper. You just cut off as much as you need through the wrapper at the indicated point. That being said, the whole stick of butter is 1/2 cup so if that was the measurement you needed you wouldn't have to cut anything.
Post by klingklang77 on Aug 13, 2015 6:28:07 GMT -5
Yes. It would make the recipes I get from the US much easier to cook here. I always have to look up the butter conversion to grams. I do use cups and teaspoons, but not when baking bread. I like weighing myself in kilograms because it's less . I got the hang of kilometers when I started driving. However meters confuse me, but I think that is more of a spatial awareness problem.
The temperature still confuses me. If the weather says 21 one day and 25 the next, it seems the same to me. But I know when it's hot, cold, etc. I still do the Fahrenheit conversion in my head after 10 years.
Not the metric system (which I'm in favor of, ftr) but on my first day of university in Ireland a professor told one of my classes that we'd meet in small groups fortnightly. I had to be the idiot and ask in front of the whole class what, exactly, a fortnight was because I had heard the word but didn't know what it actually meant.
I think the metric system is easy to deal with. It makes sense. But the construction industry would be a nightmare because so much stuff is manufactured in the US, and it's all in inches and feet. And we use those known sizes to design.
Lumber: 2x4 = 1.5" x 3.5". 2x6 = 1.5" x 5.5" Etc etc. Gyp board: 3/8" thick, 5/8" thick, or 3/4" thick depending on use Steel studs: 2.5" wide. Or 3 5/8" wide. Or 5.5" wide. Etc etc. Steel beams: A W beam is named by its depth and steel strength/type. In inches. Bricks: Standard sizes for buildings built in the US are in inches because so many are made in the US Concrete Masonry Units: Same as above
Even if we made the switch to metric...we would still be thinking of everything in the English and just naming them in metric. It's kind of insane if you think about how much of our lives are built around the English system. Doors. Tables. Chairs. Paper. Photos. Pipes. Tools. Tires.
I would just like to point out that as a direct result of partially changing over airplane standards a Boeing 767 was drastically shorted feul and would have crashed had the pilot not known about an abandoned runway close to where they ran out and miraculously been able to glide it in with no engines. Change isn't becessarily harmless or easy.
r]A Swedish reciepe would say 1 egg or 5 eggs not grams or ml. The only thing we measure by weight is butter - I always scratch my head when trying to figure out 1/2 cup of butter. Like do I just show the butter in to the cup??
Butter comes in sticks that have the measurements printed onto the wrapper. You just cut off as much as you need through the wrapper at the indicated point. That being said, the whole stick of butter is 1/2 cup so if that was the measurement you needed you wouldn't have to cut anything.
Yeah see here butter comes in blocks of 500 g (or sometimes in smaller blocks of 250 g) so that's why goving vume measurements doesn't make sense to me.
Butter comes in sticks that have the measurements printed onto the wrapper. You just cut off as much as you need through the wrapper at the indicated point. That being said, the whole stick of butter is 1/2 cup so if that was the measurement you needed you wouldn't have to cut anything.
Yeah see here butter comes in blocks of 500 g (or sometimes in smaller blocks of 250 g) so that's why goving vume measurements doesn't make sense to me.
Yeah, that is why I didn't do a lot of baking when we were living in Switzerland and the Czech Republic.
Grams are mass, not weight. Sorry, had to say it. I say a resounding yes to converting. Anecdote #1 - I already bake with a scale, not measuring cups, so that would be a plus for me. Anecdote #2 - My sister and her family just moved back to the US last month, after living in Switzerland for 8 years. My 12 year-old niece had to take a math placement test prior to being scheduled for her 7th grade classes. Because she didn't know how many pints were in a quart, how many quarts in a gallon, etc, she did relatively poorly on her placement test, and was placed accordingly. Yeah, she is bored spitless in her math class.
Grams are mass, not weight. Sorry, had to say it. I say a resounding yes to converting. Anecdote #1 - I already bake with a scale, not measuring cups, so that would be a plus for me. Anecdote #2 - My sister and her family just moved back to the US last month, after living in Switzerland for 8 years. My 12 year-old niece had to take a math placement test prior to being scheduled for her 7th grade classes. Because she didn't know how many pints were in a quart, how many quarts in a gallon, etc, she did relatively poorly on her placement test, and was placed accordingly. Yeah, she is bored spitless in her math class.
Yet the hospitals out here indicate premie weight gain using grams. Coworker had an emergency c section at 28 weeks and that is how I found out that 28 grams= 1 ounce. She kept us updated about her daughters condition and kept mentioning her weight gain in grams!
Gold is also weighed and sold by grams since very little jewelry actually contains an ounce of gold.