My kitchen is the heart of my home. My friends all like to hang out in there instead of in my more spacious living room.
|
My kitchen is the heart of my home. My friends all like to hang out in there instead of in my more spacious living room.
|
I grew up using grams and kilos. At school the maths teacher explained the imperial system to us – feet, pounds, etc. - but like most Italian schoolkids, I didn't pay too much attention. It never occurred to me that one day I might find myself using such a system. It's all about weightThe metric system was adopted in the UK in the early '70s, but most Brits still prefer the imperial system. This gives me a big problem every time I want to use a British cook book. The fact that I started out with an old imperial set of scales in my kitchen only served to make things worse. As I understand it, the main difference between imperial and metric is in the decimals. There are 100 grams in a kilo, but 16 ounces (oz) in a pound (lbs), so doing conversions between the two systems is a nightmare. What about a tablespoon? Is it metric or imperial? Apparently an imperial tablespoon is equivalent to a 15ml metric tablespoon. There's no way my poor maths skills can cope! To avoid endless calculation in the middle of me trying to cook, I printed out a conversion chart and stuck it on my kitchen wall. Everything went fine until I came across a recipe from an American cook book. This worked in cups Take with a pinch of saltI'll be honest, I'm guilty of using non-standard measurements. When someone asks me for a recipe I sometimes give instructions like, take a pinch of this or a handful of that. I'm getting used to the puzzled looks. How much is a pinch and how big is your hand? Am I referring to a grown man's hand (glove size 12” or 30cm) or a small woman's hand (glove size 6” or 15cm)? Reading the American ingredients list, I began to realize how my friends felt when dealing with my instructions. What size of cup were they asking for, a tea cup or a big cappuccino cup? Would a standard British tea mug (1/2pt) be big enough? I could understand how using a cup to scoop some flour out of a bag might be practical, but I couldn't grasp how one measures a cup of peas. Trying to make sense of it all, I worked out that Americans measure by volume, not weight. It's quite impossible to convert between a volume system and a weight system, metric or imperial. As you can imagine, a cup of peas doesn't weigh the same as a cup of sugar, leave alone a cup of spaghetti – what are you supposed to do, break it up into tiny pieces so it'll fit in the cup? I love searching the internet for recipes to try, but sometimes I've had to discard some of the more interesting ones because the measurement is given in cups. I have several mugs and cups of different sizes, but I've found out the hard way that none of them are right for taking measurements. GadgetsI'm not a fan of technical stuff, but I can't resist a kitchen gadget. So I bought a digital scale that can switch from grams to ounces, and even cups! I can now try any recipe I fancy without being held back by the question of measurement. My conversion chart is now just a nice picture on my kitchen wall! Now, I'm going to propose to you a recipe that can be prepared in any part of the world, no matter what the measurement system. The beauty of this recipe is the easy way in which the ingredients are weighed. All you need is a cup, or a mug, or a glass, or a coffee cup. This will be your only scale. The only thing to bear in mind is that the bigger the container, the more biscuits you will have! Mini doughnutsingredients
|
AuthorI love cooking, and when it comes to quality I'm quite fussy. Archives
February 2018
Categories
All
Let's connect!My Links |