Friday 12 January 2007

When a Cup is Not a Cup

When I first came across a brownies recipe which I liked, I wanted to try it. However, when I studied the recipe closer, it states that the amount of butter to use is half a cup. I was totally puzzled. How should one measure half a cup of butter which comes in a block form? Do I need to melt it?? During the earlier years when I helped my mum in her baking, we usually weigh the ingredients. We didn't use any measuring cup to measure butter or any dry ingredients. That recipe also calls for 1 1/4 cups of sugar. I thought well, I could at least use my liquid measuring cup to measure that. Luckily, with the help of the www, I managed to get the weight of half a cup of butter. I also realised that the measuring cup to measure liquid is not meant for measuring dry ingredients, such as sugar and flour. The weight of a cup of bread flour is different from that of cake flour. I was glad that I gathered enough information before venturing into making that brownies, otherwise, I wonder how it will turn out? I don't like to measure dry ingredients in cups, I prefer to weight them. Since then, I have created my own little conversion table. I have posted it here so that if you come across any recipes that calls for 1 Stick of butter, you would know that it's half a cup or 4oz, and that you need 8 whole eggs to make 400g of eggs. I do hope you would find this useful.


Conversion Table

Granulated Sugar (1 Cup = 200g)
Caster Sugar (1 Cup = 175g)
Icing Sugar (1 Cup = 125g)
Brown Sugar (1 Cup = 120g)
Plain Flour (1 Cup = 140g)
Cake Flour (1 Cup = 125g)
Bread Flour (1 Cup = 135g)
Whole Wheat Flour (1 Cup = 120g)
Oat Bran (1 Cup = 94g)
Cocoa Powder (1 Cup = 112g)
Butter (1 Cup = 225g = 8 oz)
Butter (Half Cup = 8 tablespoon = 4oz = 1 stick=113g)
Corn Flour (1 tbsp = 7g)
Gelatin Powder (1 tbsp = 9g)
Baking Powder (1 tsp = 5g)
1 whole egg (without shell) is about 50g
1 egg white is about 30g
1 egg yoke is about 20g

Instant Yeast (source from: 孟老师的100道面包)
1g = 1/4 tsp
2g = 1/2 tsp
3g = 1/4 + 1/2 tsp
4g = 1 tsp
5g = 1 & 1/4 tsp

18 comments:

Jocelyn said...

Thank you so much for sharing the conversion table with us. I have always wondered how much 1 stick of butter was but never got around to finding out myself. Thanks again!

Happy Homebaker said...

Hi Jocelyn,
Thanks for dropping by =)
Glad to hear that you find this information useful.

Anonymous said...

Hi! I have been trying to find out how much in ml is 1 egg white. Any idea?

Happy Homebaker said...

hi wokkingmum, I just checked the conversion tool (the link is listed under the TOOLS category in my blog), the egg white of one large egg is about 32ml. hope this helps. However, I guess the most accurate would be measure the egg whites of those eggs that you usually use.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the info. I bought a carton of egg whites and I had a recipe that calls for 3 egg whites. I will assume they are refering to large egg white.

Thanks again. ;)

Btw, I love all your creation! Simply amazing!

Anonymous said...

Hi Happy Homebaker, I wanna thank u for the conversion table, it's a great help,thanks for sharing.

Happy Homebaker said...

Hi fuzzy, thanks! I'm glad to hear that this table comes in useful :D

Anonymous said...

Hi Happy Homebaker,
Thanks a lot for sharing your hard work in this very useful conversion table. I put a link on my blog:
http://mainmainmasakmasak.wordpress.com

Like you, my grandmother came up with her own conversion table back in the 1960s :), using ounces:
http://nicerecipes.wordpress.com/2007/07/09/oven-temperatures-and-baking-measures

Thanks also for your entire website, full of mouth-watering photos and valuable tips!

Anonymous said...

It's Niceties again. Oops, I'm sorry, the last link I gave to my grandmother's conversion tables didn't come out right. Please try this instead: http://tinyurl.com/3az4dt

Happy Homebaker said...

Thanks Niceties, it's very lovely of you to put up all your grandma's recipes :)

lolly said...

Hi, Thanks a lot for sharing your conversion table. It's a great help. More power. I love this site!

God bless,
Lolly

Anonymous said...

Hi Happy Homebaker

Need your advice, what is the weight for 1 cup self aising floor and all purpose floor? I seems to be getting diferent answers from different websites.

Thanks
Cat

Happy Homebaker said...

Hi Cat, I faced the same problem with you. I noticed different websites and even different cookbooks give different measurements. It also depends on the flour, different brands give different measurements. As such I've since avoid using recipes that calls for measurment in cups, and I have bought a set of measuring cups, but I am still not very comfortable using them!

Anonymous said...

Oh...sigh, guess I will have to avoid those recipes. Thanks for your reply I was thinking of getting the measuring cups too, guess need to reconsider

Cat

Happy Homebaker said...

Hi Cat, don't be put off by my comment, I do think you should get a set of measuring cups for convenience, it should just be me that's having problem ;p

ila nursalida said...

thanks for the conversion table. very useful though. can i paste it to my blog for the ref of others? i'll provide with ur link. thanks. need to hear permission from u

Happy Homebaker said...

Hi ila nursalida, Thanks for visiting. I am fine with you for linking up this table in your blog :)

Sumaiyyah said...

Hello! Tq very much for this! I used to wonder how one measures butter by cup too, so I used to wait 'til they got to room temp and then when they're soft, measure them. Sticky and messy, though. So I Googled and found how much 1 cup of butter weighs. I still prefer to measure dry ingredients using cups though ;)