Dry Cups and Liquid Cups

Hi tvp45.

My grandma taught me to bake back well, way back...

She had one tin measuring cup, (you couldn't read!) and eventually one of them newfangled pyrex glass measuring cups marked for liquids.

Believe me, baking in her house was not a matter of hitting the meniscuss square on the 150 ml line... like in chem lab.

There was so much variation in materials, plus oven, (1950's electric, can you say +/- 75degrees?) plus humidity (no Air cond.), temperature of kitchen variation seasonally+ breezes) etc, that the "process control" was NOT hitting measurements exact- it was knowing what the dough should"feel like." I swear she used hotter water to touch)for yeast when she saw the curtains blowing in the breeze)

I think thats where the modern recipe folks have come upwith the Plus 2 TSps, etc adjustments.

My wife stopped baking after she tried to make my muffin recipe to the letter and they didn't bake right at all, I free poured all ingredients and got them perfect, because i looked at the slurry consistency and added more or less bran flakes etc to the mix.

I worked in QC for many years. In manufacturing. Baking to me is an art. And its hard to hang process control charts on art.

WHere do you hide those Rachel Ray DVD's?

milo

True. Until the recent upsurge in mass production there was little QC. Recipes written out from both my wife's and my grandmothers contain directions like "put 'enough' of this with a 'smidge' of that knead in a tbs or two of cooking oil". But hey! those recipes worked for them.

Hi TVP,

Interesting you tell about "taking up baking" ... now that I mostly live alone (my wife is with me only about 5 months of the year), I actually I found that cooking is better than starving (or paying restaurants every day), and I found I'm actually pretty good at it. Not that any real cook has to worry about their career, but at least I can do it and the results are not too bad.

BUT, being the average geek, I rarely look at manuals or, in this case recipes, until I have some disaster. Maybe good or maybe not, but 80% of the time, the results are not too bad.

STILL, I won't give up on the 'cooking-with-babes' shows ... I DO seem to learn a lot.

Kind regards ......

You have 4 out of 5 shown, all you needed was the microwave.

lol...nice one. Love the "how to boil an egg"

On the New Scandinavian Cooking Show they would give metric and regular measurements.

So, for those that watch the shows for the recipes ( I AM a Rachel Ray fan myself, just that wifey is a chef so we have to watch the others too), some of the more precise recipes are going to weighing the items in question. I recently bought a kitchen scale for my spouse, and she likes the high techness of it. She does still do the dollop of this and pinch of that, but when it comes to making bread or the such ( including Mead, yum-o) the scale is the way to go. Just thought I would throw that monkey wrench into the mix.

Cheers! Mastrsmth

As Milo has correctly pointed out cooking is an "Art" not an exact Science. Although there are scientific principles that govern it. I worked at Rhoades Bake-N-Serve for a couple years of my life when I was younger. We mixed bread dough in what they called "small batches". 500 Lbs. at a time. Each batch started out with 300 lbs. of flour. There was the 14 lbs. of yeast and some various other ingredients. Than we had a water panel that we could set the amount of water we wanted. Oddly enough we metered the water in lbs. also. But the amount varied anywhere from 130 lbs. up to 170 lbs. It depended on how "green" the flour was. If the flour had sat around a long time than it tended to be drier and took more water. If it was freshly milled and still moist (green) than it took less water. Each time we switched to a new box car of flour we had to re-calibrate the number of lbs. we were putting in the mixers for the batch. And as Milo correctly pointed out the way we knew if we had too much or not enough was to pay attention to the consistency of the dough. We knew exactly how the dough should look and how it should feel and handle. So we'd make small adjustments until we had the water just right and than we'd run with that until the next box car. I look back on that job with fond memories. Not something I wanted to make a career out of but I definately had fun running those big mixers as a kid. It made me feel manly I guess. They definately had powerful motors that operated them. We had 4 mixers in the mixing room. 2 on each side of the ingredient bins. 2 of us worked back there. Each of us was in charge of the two mixers on our side of the room. It took 16 minutes to mix a batch of dough. We had to complete the entire cycle for a batch on each mixer in 20 minutes. That left us 4 minutes to re-load the mixer with the next batch. It took the cutting machine 5 minutes to cut 500 lbs of dough into 500 one pound lumps of dough to be molded into loaves. We had to bring a batch out of the mixing room every 5 minutes. We had the batches all staggered so that one came off each side every 10 minutes. You were yelled at just as much if you brought the dough out early as if you brought it out late. Early was bad because the dough would start to rise before they could feed it into the cutting machine giving the cutting machine operator difficulties. The whole operation was very well run and the work in the mixing room was intense! I thrived on it! A good mixer also learned some cool tricks. We discovered that if you cut the dough off the beater bars just right you could get the mixer to "kick" the entire batch of dough out of the mixer all in one large lump with enough force for it to hit the tub and send it rolling across the mixing room floor. Than with a well placed guiding hand on one corner of the tub you could steer it over to the cutter operator with very little effort. The tub generally ran out of steam just as it coasted into place under the thermometer (A thermometer hung from the ceiling and you had to pull it down and take the temperature of each batch of dough and record it). I can still hear it in my mind. The loud resounding smack as 500 lbs. of dough hit the well oiled steel tub. That whole process was an art too. If you didn't operate the controls just right you'd give the dough too much kick as it left the mixer and you'd end up hitting the side of the tub too high and the tub would flip over on top of the dough leaving you to face a very angry supervisor. That didn't happen very often though. Once you were skilled at it things rarely went awry unless of course you had an over helpful supervisor. We had one who like to punch the water button for us. He thought he was being helpful. We had to watch him like a hawk! If he punched it than that meant we didn't need to. If we didn't see him punch it and we punched it too than we ended up with a large batch of pancake batter. A very big mess! O.K. enough traveling down memory lane.

Memories.....

That brings up another complaint. Who the heck thinks up phrases like "punch"? I was trying to make French bread the first time and the recipe said "punch the dough with your fist." So I did. The loaf was heavy as a brick. The next time I had my wife watch. When I pulled the dough out and gave it three of four imitations of a Mike Tyson punch, she started yelling at me. Turns out you just give it not much more than a gentle love tap (at least for a small loaf).

Not necessarily so. Julia Child could have taken on Mike Tyson in punching down bread, and my money would have been on her.

I"ll bet a wine drinking contest between those two would be a good contest also.

Don't you mean the "P*****g contest" afterwards?

The reason you weighed the water was because professional bakers use a system called "baker's percentage."

The amount of flour used is 100% Every other ingredient is given as a percentage of 100% whatever that may be.

Except for variables like green flour working by weight is the most accurate and repeatable system.

I have always cooked since running away from home at sixteen. Mostly it is an art.

Nonetheless, because of the execrable bread sold in markets here in Atlanta I have started to bake for myself.

Small batches can be done simply by using a liquid measure and tablespoons and teaspoons. As you observed you get to know the dough.

But when I want to get arty I would like to have a firm baseline.

Hence I intend to buy a scale and convert to bakers percentages.

There are other tricks like getting steam into the oven. A crude way is to put a heavy cast Iron skillet in the bottom of the oven and dump into it, after preheating it along with the oven, ice cubes or a cup of hot water at the same time you put the bread into the oven. Steam creates that New York bread crust.

Alternatively, I use a closed bread pan or dutch oven (Look on the web for video of Mark Bittman's no knead bread) so that the moisture of the dough in the closed environment provides the needed steam.

But it is an art and after a few times you can discard most of the measuring and do it like your granny did, a pinch of this and a pinch of that.

That stuff about experiments with eggs just cracks me up. At any specific altitude water boils at a specific temperature. That is all the starting standard you need. Just bring the eggs to room temperature before you start because they will crack if not.

j.

j.

Well, so far as I can see no-one answered even the Brit part of the question. British recipes generally use weights for dry goods and volumes for liquids (though in my home we always measure whole rice by volume). We are of course entirely consistent in our recipes, so we have both imperial and metric weights taking space on the counter, and our measuring jugs are marked in fluid ounces, ml, imperial pints, and cups (a UK cup is 10-fluid ounces, or half an imperial pint). And we still have our sets of US cups mouldering in the drawers...

Following all this precision, any recipe using flour or fine sugars needs to be adapted to the moisture content of the 'dry' ingredients; plus I have yet to find a European (including UK) recipe using flour that remotely works in the US.
[The behaviour is as if American cake flour have similar gluten content to UK bread flour? And I've yet to find proper French bread (low-gluten content) in the US - could the reason be the same, or is the milling different as well?]

You have been warned...

You have to use "cake flour" in the US. Even that doesn't work perfectly, but not many stores carry any variety of flours.

Not true.

Kroger's and Publix carry a full line of flours. Regular all purpose, self rising, bread, rye, whole wheat.

But if you want some really exotic flours and there is an Indian market in your location they carry all sorts of stuff insofar as they cook a wide variety of breads.

I picked up a package of rice flour the other day, There are also flours made from lentils, beans, etc.

'Course you might have to get someone to translate for you.

j.

Krogers? Publix? We've heard rumors that there is a strange land where they have more than one supermarket, but we thought that only an old urban legend.

The Indian market is a good suggestion. I hadn't thought of that. We have at least two in my area. Thanks for the tip. A very GA.

BTW, not in response to you, but to others who question my obsession compulsion anal retentiveness attention to detail (ahh! ) about measuring, I plead guilty to keeping a measuring cup and spoons in the shop for small batches of mortar. I think my brain probably rewired itself over the years.

In the US there are a number of different types of flour sitting side by side on the market shelves.

General all purpose flour is just that, all purpose.

For bread there is bread flour which has a higher gluten content, important to most types of bread. There is also available gluten which can be added to flour. I usually use bread flour and then 4 heaping tablespoons of gluten which provides a denser, more regular crumb.

This is for a yeast dough that turns into a pound and a half loaf.

j.

Use weight instead of volume. A suitable electronic weight can be set at zero each time you will add new components. I use that in my kitchen by making bread.

International cooking calculator including a dash, hint or pinch etc..

http://www.onlineconversion.com/cooking.htm

Are you suggesting that we should convert all our recipe books?

Now that you have the instructions, don't expect them to be a great help.

My mind has slipped and doesn't calculate from memory well at least so she said.

The conversion available does for my laziness when she gives me the business

Hi,

The measures are different because of the settling properties of liquids vs powders. the dry cup measurement has to be slightly larger than the liquid cup, since a liquid cup will more or less fill a vessal evenly, while the dry powder will have trapped air and gaps.

-Mike

This reads like an excuse rather than a reason.

They are measures of different things, so all that needs to done is specify the relevant amount (in a consistent measure) for each material. In any case, packing variations mean you would need a different measure for different dry materials; for example, common salt and sugar in their different forms for example can each vary by more than 20%, and density reductions relative to the continuous material are seldom as small as the 12% difference between US liquid and solid measures.

I remember learning: A pints a pound the world around. Except when you are weighing maple syrup! Maple syrup is heavier. I was fascinated with the process of making it too. But that's a whole other story for another day. More memories! And of course this saying applied to liquids.

And of course it's untrue even of water: an Imperial pint is learned by a different rhyme:

"A pound of water weighs a pound and a quarter"

Then (as you imply) there are US dry pints (I've yet to find a cooking ingredient for which a pint consistently weighs a pound - maybe some whole grain does, though).

Water in Germany.....as a German "Pound" = 500 Grams......

But they still have pound jam jars in the shops with 432 (from my head only, tell me if I need to check that) grams, which I am guessing is probably an English pound (lb.) weight!!!

Some pipe threads here are still imperial too......strange!

One pound (Imperial/US) ~ 454 grammes

One pound (troy) ~ 373 grammes

I think I have seen 432-gm jars of jam as well. Maybe it's origin is some volume measure converted to weight (jam's quite dense - nearly as much as I feel). But it might just be manufacturer's saving on raw materials...

I looked in the kitchen, no jam jars to check........sorry.

And if from the US working on printing machinery, Roland, Harris and then various English manufactures, in England in the 60's you have at least three systems in your mind.

j.

That's why the pro's use weight and percentages.

j.

I have been an amateur cook for over 50 years now and remember asking about this from several mom(s): mom, step-mom, mom-in-law, grandmas etc. I guess what I think it comes down to is that there is no proper or accurate measure for anything, especially in baking, (too much variability in flour, weather etc.) so the recipes are always vague so that the recipe isn't wrong it's always the cook.

175C = 347F

An oven set to 175F will cook a rack of ribs nicely in a few hours but would leave chicken almost deadly.

347 F will make a meatloaf tasty. 347 C will make it charcoal.

Units are important.

"Stop thinking as an engineer..." Right. How?

My Theory is cooking/baking is fun & relaxing if you are into it....just have at it & who knows, sometimes the bigger screw-ups still come out good....

not perfect, but good

Just like cooking steaks, even if ya burn 'em ('cause there's beers in the bucket) you can still eat 'em

My Wife loves me, doesn't take much to make me happy....

Cooking is an art learned by constant practice. I watch TV cooking shows and consult cookbooks for ideas and a general list of ingredients. How I put them all together is entirely up to me. I experiment a lot and come up with some unique recipes that I have never seen anywhere else. I always wanted to open a restaurant, but 1. its too much work and 2. Why cook for someone who thinks gourmet is a word printed on a TV dinner. To be a good cook, one must love food as a first requirement. You cook not for someone else, but for your own taste. If someone else likes what you cook, then you can regard it as a success. I don't pay too much attention to measure. Finding the right combinations of ingredients is a skill that comes from a lot of practice. I seldom write down my recipes because my skills are constantly evolving, but rely on my sense to duplicate a recipe. My recipes rarely come out the same every time. Cooking is a vital skill that everyone should know. BTW, Good eats with Alton Brown is my favorite TV cooking show. This show should appeal to the engineer mindset more than any other show.

Adhering to a recipe is good for a person to impress someone. It is not particularly fun (for me anyway). I have never worried about the calibration of any kitchen toys, or the degree to which a cup of flour or of sugar or of water is not the same mass as a cup of something else. When I was a kid, I learned to measure the volume of only freshly sifted flour. Now I see no reason to grind in bits of metal, and to waste my time. A settled cup is much heavier than a freshly poured one. I pour flour from one cup into another, over the bin rather than get out a sifter if I want to match someone else's mass of flour. I write all my recipes in metric terms, mL for everything. If using someone else's list, I translate CUPS and TBLSP into mL before dispensing the material. If you are going to make this food regularly, re-write the recipe to your own taste. I have made my own cookie and bread recipes (for decades) that are way different from where I started. I try to make the dry ingredient measures in a consistent way; a fully settled cup of whole-wheat flour is very consistent in mass. I have a scale, but it is quicker to dip a plastic cup into the flour bin and shake it a bit, then dump it out into the bowl. The scale would allow a plus/minus 0.1% on the mass of flour used, but take 8 times as long... In cookie recipes, the amount of water has a big impact on how thick the dough is... water volume has to be adjusted for the fact that the oatmeal and flour masses and densities can vary quite a bit in my kitchen. I let a bread machine do all the gluten work on bread.. no punching here. I use canola oil (a local product) and a few mL of water to substitute for any margarine or butter called for in the recipes of others. I can use the sweetener of my choice, and leave out the salt altogether. I get enough salt in other foods, in normal weather. 5 minute oatmeal is quite healthy, and can be a major (20+%?)component, of hamburger patties, and or of any bread.. you just have to experiment. One of the life-long benefits of my degree in Chemical Engineering and all those hours in SEMI-MICRO QUANTITATIVE CHEMISTRY labs.

You wrote what appears to be a good Recipe for us all, I would just add a dash of something hot to what you have there (might keep the boys away from yours too!)

You also wrote:-

Fill a small bowel for yourself and hide it in the fridge or you may not get any at all.

What sort of "bowel" do you recommend for your Dip sausage (?), sheep's, cow's, pig's or human???? Does it just put them all off as well from stealing it from the fridge?

My gf is taking some baking classes at a local college, they don't use any measuring cups or spoons for dry ingredients.

Everything they measure is done by weight, she is always complaining about needing a scale if she wants to use their recipe at home.

Why don't you get her some, it's what she thinks she wants, and she'd have no excuse...

She has a scale, its just that she doesn't like to use it as she is used to measuring cups.

although cups and spoons are the generally use impliments. Alton Brown says you should always ad dry ingredients by weight to make the recipe repeatable.

There's a monkey wrench for ya

Keep it simple (and satisfactorily accurate). Forget the conversions and just use the cups (1/1, 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/8,...1/whatever...tbsp, tsp). Add dry ingredient to the "cup" (don't scoop or pack (except brown sugar)), scrape even at top with knife...you have a "dry" measure; fill that same "cup" to overfill point with the liquid ingredient...you have a liquid measure. In other words, liquid and dry measure is all about the conversions, not about the vessel.

Things like scant are all matters of guesswork...matters of judgment. For example, a "scant" relative to a 1 cup (8-ounce) recipe might be small in comparison with a scant relative to a 4-pound recipe...but when you go over a scant, you will generally know it.