As a scientist and a chemist I tend to measure everything, and I try to do this as accurately as I can. Someone once told me that when cooking you do not have to measure ingredients precisely, but when baking – you do.
I grew up in Poland, so I I used metric system and wasn’t exposed to US system until I moved to the US. Then I moved to Canada – officially a metric country. But in reality, in every day life in Canada the US measures are still going strong. Yes, we measure outside temperature in degrees Celsius, and distances in kilometres, but essentially all cooking devices (ovens, slow cookers, toaster ovens, etc.) are set by default to degrees Fahrenheit. The new ones can be reprogrammed to degrees C, but what is the point; most cookbooks, whether published in Canada or US will specify the cooking or baking temperature in °F.
Similarly, the volume measures used at home in Canada are US measures. The reason for that is that measuring cups you can buy in Canada adhere to US measures (see the picture). Yes, the glass measuring cups have both metric and US scales, but again most recipes will tell you to use 3 cups of milk, rather than 750 mL.
The difference between an US cup and Polish glass (250 mL) is relatively small; a cup is smaller by about one tbsp, so you probably will get good results interchanging these measures. But be aware about US and Imperial measures – for volume they differ significantly, e.g., 1 Imp. gal. = 1.2 US Gal. I have no experience whether the Imperial measures are still used in the UK.
For the reasons above, in my posted recipes I generally use:
grams for weight, (more precise)
mL for volume (more precise), except when it is easier to measure it in cups and the precision is not critical.
On the other hand the temperature in my recipes will be primarily in degrees Fahrenheit (I have to set this on my oven), with Celsius equivalent given. Recipes that I created earlier and just post their copy here may not adhere to that.
For solid ingredients like sugar or flour, I prefer to use weight rather than volume. In particular, measuring flour by volume is inherently not accurate; it depends on whether it was fluffed or packed, and also on the particular grade of the flour. For sugar it is more repeatable, but may differ for different granulation. Polish sugar is generally coarser than Canadian.
Below is a table of some conversions between US and metric measures just to make everyone dizzy:
| US Measure | Metric equivalent |
|---|---|
| 1 tsp | 5 mL (surprise, it is metric, but the difference would be only 0.07 mL) |
| 1 tbsp | 15 mL |
| 1 cup | 236 mL |
| 1 oz. (ounce) weight | 28.35 g (Such precision may be important only for a chemist) |
| 1 lb. (pound) | 454 g |
| 1 fl.oz. (volume) | 29.57 mL (yes, it is not the same conversion as for weight) |
| 1 pt. (pint) | 473 mL |
| 1 qt. quart | 946 mL |
| 1 US Gallon | 3.785 L |
There is 8 fl.oz. in a cup, 2 cups in a pint, 2 pints in a quart, and 4 quarts in a Gallon.
There is 16 oz. in a pound.
There is 3 tsp per 1 tbsp, and about 2 tbsp per fl.oz. so almost16 tbsp per 1 cup.