Please Write Proper Measurements

Baking By lomfise Updated 18 Jan 2012 , 1:02am by cheatize

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Deb_ Posted 21 Jan 2010 , 12:36am
post #61 of 94
Quote:
Originally Posted by lomfise

I know this is stupid to waste time on but I remember once hearing a certain George W. Bush refering to Denmark as the capital of Sweden and it's not! It's a whole country of it's own, granted, not a large one, but if anyone dare calls us Swedish we might just remember we have viking blood in our veins and come for you... icon_evil.gif




Gotta love ole G.W. he put his foot in his mouth on many an occasion while he was in the White House. ughhhh embarrassing!

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Larkin121 Posted 21 Jan 2010 , 4:02am
post #62 of 94

On a somewhat related note, I wish more recipes were written in grams. Almost every recipe I find, including in well known baking books, are written in cups instead of grams, even if the author is a pastry chef. You know those chefs are NOT using cups, so why do they write like that? I guess because they assume their reader is just your average home cook. But it's not exact at all unless you weigh your ingredients....

Maybe I should purchase my books from Europe... you guys over there have all your books in grams, yes? My grandfather's old books (from Germany) are all in grams. But then, they're all in German, too, and I'm not quite that fluent. icon_smile.gif

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Cake4ever Posted 21 Jan 2010 , 10:43am
post #63 of 94
Quote:
Originally Posted by indydebi

Quote:
Originally Posted by SkisInOkinawa

.... to be fair about this subject, grocery stores in America are not as convenient as they are in a small village where you can walk to all the shops etc. Our stores are very well spread out and you may drive a good 15 miles or more to get to the store, so when you do make your purchases you want to make sure you buy enough.



We had friends from England who came and stayed a couple of weeks with us. They told us they never understood the American's fascination with their cars .... until they got here and saw how spread out everything was. THey, too, were used to EVERYTHING being in walking distance from their home. At my home, NOTHING was in walking distance!

Quote:
Quote:

To me at least in NY:
Jello - clear dessert that wiggles
Jam - goes on toast - seedless
Jelly - goes on toast - has seeds
Perserves - chunks of fruit, better for treats then toast



I think you switched a couple .... jam has seeds. Jelly does not. icon_wink.gif




So true Indy! LOL. At least we don't have to pay about 9+ dollars a gallon for gas!!! Thankfully they don't have so far to go. The whole of the UK can fit into Texas 3 times, so I've been told, so it's hard for them to imagine driving far for things.

I myself feel like a tourist when I go home to the states for a visit. The grocery stores are amazing. I was ever so shocked at colored butter and ketchup! Now tell me that is not a gimick to get kids to eat more of it!

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lomfise Posted 21 Jan 2010 , 1:47pm
post #64 of 94
Quote:
Originally Posted by Larkin121

On a somewhat related note, I wish more recipes were written in grams. Almost every recipe I find, including in well known baking books, are written in cups instead of grams, even if the author is a pastry chef. You know those chefs are NOT using cups, so why do they write like that? I guess because they assume their reader is just your average home cook. But it's not exact at all unless you weigh your ingredients....

Maybe I should purchase my books from Europe... you guys over there have all your books in grams, yes? My grandfather's old books (from Germany) are all in grams. But then, they're all in German, too, and I'm not quite that fluent. icon_smile.gif




I too prefer recipes in grams and kilos, so much more precise, but it isn't all that hard to change them, I use this site http://www.dianasdesserts.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/tools.measures/Measures.cfm

If you want cooking books in grams, try amazon.co.uk and make sure you order the european version of the book. icon_lol.gif I think most books are published both in an American version and in an English version. detective.gif
Personally I love Nigella Lawson's books.

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CakeMommyTX Posted 21 Jan 2010 , 2:51pm
post #65 of 94

I for one am glad I live in a country where I can buy Ketchup that has a half-life of 5,000 years .

I went to school with a girl from S.Africa, she told me her father cried when he saw his first American grocery store.
Can you imagine a grown many crying because there was rows and rows of food all for the taking?

After years of going hungry and not being able to provide his family with basic nutrition here he was standing in an American grocery store crying over everything that some of you are turning your noses up at.

I'm just grateful that I can stock my pantry with canned soup, vegs and dried mixes, had I not we would have gone hungry for a 11days after Hurricane Ike because I had to throw out all my "fresh" food, no power no refrigeration, no meats, fine cheeses or anything else perishable.

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Larkin121 Posted 21 Jan 2010 , 3:53pm
post #66 of 94
Quote:
Originally Posted by CakeMommyTX

I for one am glad I live in a country where I can buy Ketchup that has a half-life of 5,000 years .

I went to school with a girl from S.Africa, she told me her father cried when he saw his first American grocery store.
Can you imagine a grown many crying because there was rows and rows of food all for the taking?

After years of going hungry and not being able to provide his family with basic nutrition here he was standing in an American grocery store crying over everything that some of you are turning your noses up at.

I'm just grateful that I can stock my pantry with canned soup, vegs and dried mixes, had I not we would have gone hungry for a 11days after Hurricane Ike because I had to throw out all my "fresh" food, no power no refrigeration, no meats, fine cheeses or anything else perishable.




I think it's great that we can have that food for back up, or occassionally when needed, but I think our country just relies too much on the "easy' and less healthful option a lot of times. To each their own, but I try to feed my family fresher foods and homemade foods as often as I can to avoid some of the preservatives. I just can't see how it would be healthy to eat everything prepackaged that is so preserved that it lasts for years. Case in point, my husband had month old store bought english muffins that he forgot out about and yup, he took them out and they were still "fresh." How on earth can month old bread not be nasty?!

I can't say I don't use any of the pre packaged store stuff in my cooking, but I try to minimize it. I do make all our treats/desserts/sweets from scratch.

We are a lucky country to have access to so much food. But I think the difference is that people are talking about shops in Europe, not Africa, where the food is just as plentiful, but it is fresher and not in mass supermarkets. Right?

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MikeRowesHunny Posted 21 Jan 2010 , 4:06pm
post #67 of 94

Custard powder is not the same as your pudding mixes - it MUST be cooked. You can't just add milk and shove it in the fridge to set up. There is no such thing as instant custard (even adding boiling water is 'cooking' it!). Believe me when I say that the nearest equivalent in the UK is Angel Delight. That you DO add milk to and set up in the fridge. It also comes in a variety of flavours (and stores have their own brand equivalents). I have used Angel Delight in cakes where it says pudding miixes and it works perfectly - custard powder is unlikely to work the same way.

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CakeMommyTX Posted 21 Jan 2010 , 4:10pm
post #68 of 94

All I'm saying is at least we have the option, some countries don't, whether it be because of health regulations,importing costs or poverty.
I'm not saying we are'nt a nation of fastfood junkies, just that I'm grateful I can choose between beef with hormones or beef without.
To each their own, I cook wih both fresh and prepackaged ingrediants.

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mivea Posted 21 Jan 2010 , 4:16pm
post #69 of 94

I'm with you on this one! It's so hard to get the recipe right when it calls for all sorts of weird and wonderful packages and boxes...

The sweetened condensed milk is available at the middle eastern stores, as has been suggested, even where I live (Nakskov).
Pistachios are really hard to get - I even tried ordering from a catering supplier... But there's a shop in Helsingborg that carries all kinds of nuts. And it's fairly cheap too icon_smile.gif

I think they might also have flavored gelatin in Sweden? And marcipan is so much cheaper in Sweden...

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lomfise Posted 21 Jan 2010 , 6:55pm
post #70 of 94
Quote:
Originally Posted by mivea

I'm with you on this one! It's so hard to get the recipe right when it calls for all sorts of weird and wonderful packages and boxes...

The sweetened condensed milk is available at the middle eastern stores, as has been suggested, even where I live (Nakskov).
Pistachios are really hard to get - I even tried ordering from a catering supplier... But there's a shop in Helsingborg that carries all kinds of nuts. And it's fairly cheap too icon_smile.gif

I think they might also have flavored gelatin in Sweden? And marcipan is so much cheaper in Sweden...




Wuhuu!! Another Dane! Hvordan er vejret på Lolland? icon_lol.gif

And to get to what this thread started out about, I just saw on Allrecipe a recipe for beet salad that needed '1 bunch of beets'.

How much is a bunch? icon_confused.gif

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Gefion Posted 21 Jan 2010 , 9:14pm
post #71 of 94
Quote:
Originally Posted by lomfise

Quote:
Originally Posted by mivea

I'm with you on this one! It's so hard to get the recipe right when it calls for all sorts of weird and wonderful packages and boxes...

The sweetened condensed milk is available at the middle eastern stores, as has been suggested, even where I live (Nakskov).
Pistachios are really hard to get - I even tried ordering from a catering supplier... But there's a shop in Helsingborg that carries all kinds of nuts. And it's fairly cheap too icon_smile.gif

I think they might also have flavored gelatin in Sweden? And marcipan is so much cheaper in Sweden...



Wuhuu!! Another Dane! Hvordan er vejret på Lolland? icon_lol.gif

And to get to what this thread started out about, I just saw on Allrecipe a recipe for beet salad that needed '1 bunch of beets'.

How much is a bunch? icon_confused.gif




Jeg ved ikke med Lolland, men i Århus sner det thumbsdown.gif

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prterrell Posted 22 Jan 2010 , 2:18am
post #72 of 94
Quote:
Originally Posted by lomfise

How much is a bunch? icon_confused.gif




More than a pair and less than a peck?

/ducks

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mivea Posted 22 Jan 2010 , 8:46am
post #73 of 94
Quote:
Originally Posted by lomfise



Wuhuu!! Another Dane! Hvordan er vejret på Lolland? icon_lol.gif

And to get to what this thread started out about, I just saw on Allrecipe a recipe for beet salad that needed '1 bunch of beets'.

How much is a bunch? icon_confused.gif




Sne, sne og atter sne.... Og her er så fladt at det fyger til hele tiden - fantastisk når man har under tre uger til termin :-S

Anyway... A bunch of beets? Maybe it depends how much you like beets..?
Just don't try the sugarbeets that we're growing down here - they're really horrible, though known locally as 'the white gold'

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7yyrt Posted 22 Jan 2010 , 8:40pm
post #74 of 94

Quite frankly, I'm glad we have access to food that will last for a year. If I had to go shopping every day for it, we wouldn't have eaten for 7 months.

As it is, I just took meat out of the freezer (bought for 27 - 37 cents a pound at Thanksgiving), baked bread and pastry from my home-ground flour (from stored wheat, sugar, and dried milk), rehydrated vegetables and fruit that had been packed to last 5 - 7 years. Used a few canned things.

The only food we bought for those 7 months were milk, cheese and broccoli. Fresh eggs from our hens completed our diet.

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Melvira Posted 22 Jan 2010 , 8:59pm
post #75 of 94

I have to say it kind of stinks that people think some of us hate the world for wishing we could buy fresh ingredients to cook with every day. Obviously a hurricane, an earthquake, a disaster of any sort would tend to negate a person's food snobbishness for a while. I am simply saying that in an 'ideal world situation' I would much prefer to cook using fresh ingredients, etc. I don't think that anyone else is a piece of crap for using mixes, and as I said, they definitely have their place in my repertoire. I just want to put that out there because these meaningless little things always have to turn into something so controversial, and I'm not judging anyone, but I always end up getting the stink eye from someone. I'm really sorry about some of the things that have happened to people, but I'm most certainly not speaking of those situations when I say, "Ew, I don't like canned meat." If that was ALL I had to eat, I'd be on my knees thanking God that SOMEONE had the presence of mind to can it. But while I have the choice, I'm going to pass on that so that someone who genuinely likes it can eat it.

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7yyrt Posted 23 Jan 2010 , 12:29am
post #76 of 94

I didn't intend to imply it means you hate the world if you want to buy fresh all the time.

One doesn't get the best prices that way, one needs to stock up when the prices are cheap.
I grew up growing, canning, salting, preserving, etc food. That's just the way it was done. I like knowing what the hens eat, what fertilizer is used to grow the corn, wheat and potatoes.
No one I knew except the grocer could afford to buy anything every day, anyway. Sometimes that money is needed to pay the plumber.

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Melvira Posted 23 Jan 2010 , 12:39am
post #77 of 94
Quote:
Originally Posted by 7yyrt

Sometimes that money is needed to pay the plumber.




Don't I know it... my house is 106 years old and I think it's still running on the original dirt plumbing. icon_rolleyes.gif

We're a household of electronics junkies and the wiring in this house is a joke too. I pop fuses constantly.

Wow, subject jump much? Sorry. icon_redface.gif Someone needs to cut back on the cold medicine here. icon_razz.gif

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prterrell Posted 23 Jan 2010 , 5:55am
post #78 of 94

So, how'd that beet salad turn out?

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7yyrt Posted 23 Jan 2010 , 6:13am
post #79 of 94

Our house is only about 40 years old, but I can testify that every single inch of plumbing underneath the house is less than 6 months old.
If it went through the floor, he replaced it.

Now you know why I needed NOT to buy anything! icon_biggrin.gificon_lol.gif

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indydebi Posted 23 Jan 2010 , 6:16am
post #80 of 94
Quote:
Originally Posted by Melvira

I pop fuses constantly.



My 1st MIL ran her entire 2 story house on one fuse and a penny stuck in her fuse box. icon_eek.gif She "said" the meter reader told her to do that. As someone whose family survived two house fires, it made me really nervous, but there was no changing her mind about doing it right.

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lomfise Posted 23 Jan 2010 , 8:58am
post #81 of 94
Quote:
Originally Posted by prterrell

So, how'd that beet salad turn out?




I'm sorry to admit I haven't made it yet icon_redface.gif but it is on my to-do-list for this weekend. I'm planning on using it for lunch at work next week.
BTW Thanks again for the link to Epicurios, it's a great site and so hard to choose which recipes to try first icon_lol.gif

Edited to add; I went to a Middle Eastern store yesterday and they had both unsalted pistachios (unfortunately sold out) and sweetened condensed milk. Is this the same as evaporated milk?

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prterrell Posted 23 Jan 2010 , 10:27am
post #82 of 94

No, sweetened condensed milk is NOT the same as evaporated milk.

Evaporated milk is just that, milk that has had part of the water evaporated out of it.

Sweetened condensed milk is like 1/2 way to dulce de leche, it is milk mixed with sugar cooked down to a thick syrup (like honey on a cold day).

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MikeRowesHunny Posted 23 Jan 2010 , 10:43am
post #83 of 94
Quote:
Originally Posted by lomfise

Quote:
Originally Posted by prterrell

So, how'd that beet salad turn out?



I'm sorry to admit I haven't made it yet icon_redface.gif but it is on my to-do-list for this weekend. I'm planning on using it for lunch at work next week.
BTW Thanks again for the link to Epicurios, it's a great site and so hard to choose which recipes to try first icon_lol.gif

Edited to add; I went to a Middle Eastern store yesterday and they had both unsalted pistachios (unfortunately sold out) and sweetened condensed milk. Is this the same as evaporated milk?




Do the Danes have milk that is sold from the shelf (not refridgerated) in a bottle/carton for use in coffee? That's evaporated milk. Here in Holland it's just called 'coffee milk'. HTH.

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Bunsen Posted 23 Jan 2010 , 11:00am
post #84 of 94
Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeRowesHunny

Custard powder is not the same as your pudding mixes - it MUST be cooked. You can't just add milk and shove it in the fridge to set up. There is no such thing as instant custard (even adding boiling water is 'cooking' it!). Believe me when I say that the nearest equivalent in the UK is Angel Delight. That you DO add milk to and set up in the fridge. It also comes in a variety of flavours (and stores have their own brand equivalents). I have used Angel Delight in cakes where it says pudding miixes and it works perfectly - custard powder is unlikely to work the same way.




Totally agree, powdered custard has to be cooked and is usually eaten hot poured over pudding (just to confuse things further!!). BTW pudding to a Northern English girl is hot and sweet, think steamed sponge pudding, christmas pudding or spotted dick!

I grew up in the UK and moved to Australia via the US so I have fairly good grasp on the lingo of each country, the measurements are incredibly confusing especially as Australia has different cup sizes and even a different sized tablespoon!

But I have to say the one thing that confuses me most on CC is when people use the phrase "tastes just like a Tootsie Roll" - What the hell is a Tootsie roll?????

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MikeRowesHunny Posted 23 Jan 2010 , 11:27am
post #85 of 94

[quote="Bunsen"]

Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeRowesHunny


But I have to say the one thing that confuses me most on CC is when people use the phrase "tastes just like a Tootsie Roll" - What the hell is a Tootsie roll?????




When you take Dustin Hoffman to bed icon_wink.gificon_confused.gif (still love that film, I'm an 80s girl through and through!)?! I believe it's some kind of candy, but beyond that, I haven't a clue!

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Bunsen Posted 23 Jan 2010 , 11:32am
post #86 of 94

[quote="MikeRowesHunny"]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bunsen

Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeRowesHunny


But I have to say the one thing that confuses me most on CC is when people use the phrase "tastes just like a Tootsie Roll" - What the hell is a Tootsie roll?????



When you take Dustin Hoffman to bed icon_wink.gificon_confused.gif (still love that film, I'm an 80s girl through and through!)?! I believe it's some kind of candy, but beyond that, I haven't a clue!




Yep, I always think Dustin Hoffman when I read it! There's a store here that sells US candy, I'll have to see if they sell them, then at least I'll know!

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Mensch Posted 23 Jan 2010 , 11:51am
post #87 of 94

Lomfise, depending on the application, I've successfully used fløde in place of evaporated milk.

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emccle Posted 23 Jan 2010 , 2:05pm
post #88 of 94
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Melvira Posted 23 Jan 2010 , 4:16pm
post #89 of 94
Quote:
Originally Posted by indydebi


My 1st MIL ran her entire 2 story house on one fuse and a penny stuck in her fuse box. icon_eek.gif She "said" the meter reader told her to do that. As someone whose family survived two house fires, it made me really nervous, but there was no changing her mind about doing it right.




Yikes. I mean, just yikes!! Our house has been in our family for a loooong time! We're only the 3rd owner, someone else built the place then my grandma bought it a long time ago and lived until she passed, then we bought it to keep it in the family. There are rooms that don't even HAVE electricity. We had to run the wiring, etc. There are rooms with no HEAT! No vents going to them. It's annoying but I love this old money pit.

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lomfise Posted 23 Jan 2010 , 6:53pm
post #90 of 94
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mensch

Lomfise, depending on the application, I've successfully used fløde in place of evaporated milk.




Thank you so much, I will try that and hope it works. icon_lol.gif

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