Why do Americans measure everything in cups?
Why do Americans measure everything in cups?
Used a couple of US recipes recently and most of the ingredients are in cups, or spoons, not by weight. This is a nightmare to convert. Do Americans not own scales or something? What's the reason for measuring everything by volume?
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As an American who was taught to use cups and had recipe books that used cups, I dunno but it's dumb. A cup of peanut butter?! Like no fucking way I'm scooping that shit into a cup then into whatever I'm making. But I did measure just like that before I knew better. I have a food scale and convert cups to a weight and I will never turn back.
Saves you from having to weigh the stuff. U fill the cup and dump.
Doing by weight means u have to take the extra step of weighing it after it's in a container. What a massive waste of time for no advantage.
Doing by weight means u have to take the extra step of weighing it after it's in a container.
Lol no, just weigh it as you pull it from your container. Hell, skip another step and just put your mixing bowl on the scale and zero it out. Weight measurement is so much simpler and accurate than volumetric measurements.
You could put the jar of peanut butter on the scale and measure what amount you're taking out?
Or you place your bowl etc. on the scale and tare after each addition. Doesn't work in all situations (e.g. pan on the stove) but is great for baking.
Look, it's like this..
Method 1: you get a bowl and put it on the scale. You then dump everything into it or you get a new bowl for each ingredient if you need to keep them separate.
Method 2: you get a bowl and a cup. You measure into the cup and dump the stuff in the bowl then wash the cup and then you measure the next thing then you wash again and so on.
Sometimes washing isn't needed, sure. But you still put stuff in the cup then move it rather than putting it directly in the bowl.
With spoons it's even worse because for spices, for example, many of them (at least here) come like this so spoons don't fit...so good luck pouring out of it and into a spoon and not making a mess
How do you convert cups to weight accurately when a cup of one thing might weigh more than a cup of a different thing?
Thankfully the density of most foods is known
Is there a separate conversion chart for every food out there? Seems confusing.
I just yell "okay Google how much does a cup of peanut butter weigh" if Google doesn't get me a good answer usually my husband will run in yelling the conversions he googled so I will stop yelling at the spy-assistant bot. I have encountered few ingredients that I couldn't find a weight conversion for.
Why a chart? Just throw the stuff you wanna know in wolfram alpha, it'll figure out the units for you
Measure it out the hard way once and note the weight. I do that every time I have a recipe using cups just to make my life easier. Once the recipe is properly noted, I can just put a bowl on the scale and hit the tare button after each step.