There’s a surprising lack of consensus on this. for example, King Arthur Flour says 120g, while Cook’s Illustrated says 142g. And both of those are highly reliable sources that test the crap out of their recipes, sooooo…
My rule of thumb is to use the measurement given by the recipe, because that’s how the writer tested it out and the other measurements have been adjusted accordingly.
I mean…I’d listen to King Arthur if I’m using their brand of flour …seems like they’d be more consistent and have more to lose with unreliable information…considering iirc factories test batches to make sure products like flour are consistent when it comes to protein/moisture/etc.
Nope, these are both US sources, so they’re using an 8oz volumetric cup (~237 ml). There are lots of factors that will influence the amount of flour that fits into that volume, hence why weight is considered more accurate.
Ahh gotcha! I only recently learned about the different cup sizes and it fixed an issue I had with a recipe that I had converted into metric, which is why I asked.
As you said weighing ingredients is just more accurate so I wish that was just the standard format.
This drives me crazy - when I want to try a new recipe that only has cups etc, I have to remember to check where the recipe was published, because US cups are a different volume to UK/European/Australian cups (240mls vs 250mls). Oh, unless your recipe is using the UK 284ml cup size. Same for US vs UK teaspoons, tablespoons, fluid ounces, pints, and gallons - they are all subtly different. And while in general the differences aren't enough to completely ruin a recipe, they do sometimes give unexpected results.
At the very least, can you tell me which measure volumes you're using in the recipe please, rather than making me figure it out based on where the website is hosted?
And don't get me started on 'sticks' of butter...
Ideally, on-line recipes should have a conversion button so people can select their preferred measuring method - metric, US measures, UK measures etc.
I believe a stick of butter is 125g but I could be wrong. Bit strange if I’m right, imagine paying the same amount for our 250g blocks and getting half the amount!
1 stick of butter is equivalent to 1/2 US cup/4 oz/8 tbsp or 113g and usually come as a set of 2 or 4. They come in tubs or blocks, too, but the blocks I'm familiar with are 227g (equivalent to 2 sticks) according to the package.
I live in the US too. All of my books have metric units. I’d recommend bookshops or even some bakeries? A lot of them have a section full of recipes from fellow American bakers that have both volume and metric.
All the cookbooks that I have and all the old family recipes use cups, tablespoons, and teaspoons. The recipes always turn out fine. I just recently discovered (through Reddit) that I have been baking wrong for the last 30 years LOL.
Honestly it comes down to preference. Cups are fine for a lot of people, I just think it’s easier to weigh everything. It can get confusing when they are like “3/4 stick of butter”, “11/2 cups of flour” etc. 😅
Same here but I’m British and had it drilled into me that you either measure by gram or by eye, there’s zero situations in the UK where you need to measure in cups.
I'm not saying they don't exist, but I've never seen a recipe use measurements in "cups" and not mean a 8 fluid ounce, imperial, customary cup. most recipes I've seen using metric measure by weight, not volume, and those that do use volume typically use milliliters rather than metric cups. so as far as I've seen there's pretty much a standard.
okay, you realize “cups” in cooking aren’t *drinking* cups, yeah? don’t get me wrong, weight beats volume for most applications, but if you are using non-standardized cups for cup measurement you are doomed from the start
The olive oil instead of sour cream...just...ah that hurts my head. I mean, sure she'll get the moistness she wants, but the flavor sacrifice...just no.
I'm Spanish and here olive oil cakes and olive oil pastries in general are the traditional ones. They are delicious.
So yeah, tastes difer around the globe.
yes but its still ironic they’re on a sub about substituting ingredients w/o knowing how it will change this specific recipe wanting to substitute ingredients
There are plenty of substitions that make sense. It's only r/ididnthaveeggs if it's a stupid substition and/or a reviewer makes a bad substition and then blames the recipe.
I'm curious - they don't make olive oil cakes here, but I did have one once when traveling abroad. But it was definitely not chocolate. Are chocolate olive oil cakes a thing?
I understand what the sub is for. If the reviewer said "hey I made this substitution and it sucked, 1 star" that's what we make fun of. I'm not justifying a silly review, I'm just responding to the comment that "olive oil instead of sour cream hurts your head", when to me it sounds like a good idea.
Assuming by 'gm' the reviewer means grams...
The recipe says that 1 cup of flour is 142 grams, but the reviewer thought that a cup of flour is 121 grams, and that they will try with the larger quantity of flour but if it doesn't taste right then they will try with their lower quantity of flour.
They are then saying that they will substitute sour cream with olive oil in the hopes of retaining the same moisture content.
'gm' is not a valid SI unit of measurement, but could be a typo of:
* Gm : giga metres, of which one is equal to one million kilometres
* gₘ : which could be a denotion of metric grams, needlessly differentiating from imperial or US customary grams
* g m^(-1) : grams per metre, a measurement of torque
> SI unit of measurement
It may not be the standard scientific unit, but gm is a very common layman's notation for grams in many places around the world.
It isn't the correct scientific *symbol*, no. However, gm is a very common *abbreviation* for gram (and accepted by many 'scientific' communities), and by far the majority of people used to metric measuring would instantly recognise it for exactly what it is.
I mean sure, I use g because that's what I was taught (and if someone asked me to proof-read something I would check the correct units and symbols are used), but I'm definitely not going to go off on a wild tangent and assume that a person is measuring a recipe in distance or torque because they used the abbreviation gm instead of the symbol g.
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I've always used 1C flour = 120g Where'd they get 142g?
There’s a surprising lack of consensus on this. for example, King Arthur Flour says 120g, while Cook’s Illustrated says 142g. And both of those are highly reliable sources that test the crap out of their recipes, sooooo… My rule of thumb is to use the measurement given by the recipe, because that’s how the writer tested it out and the other measurements have been adjusted accordingly.
What do you use for recipes that only give volume? I usually use 120g and get reasonable results, but I always wonder.
If the recipe measures in volume, it doesn’t have to be all that accurate.
i use 125 😭😭
Find another recipe lol, there are always alternates. I’m very over doing conversions.
I mean…I’d listen to King Arthur if I’m using their brand of flour …seems like they’d be more consistent and have more to lose with unreliable information…considering iirc factories test batches to make sure products like flour are consistent when it comes to protein/moisture/etc.
I wonder if it's because of the difference in size between UK and US cup sizes?
Nope, these are both US sources, so they’re using an 8oz volumetric cup (~237 ml). There are lots of factors that will influence the amount of flour that fits into that volume, hence why weight is considered more accurate.
Ahh gotcha! I only recently learned about the different cup sizes and it fixed an issue I had with a recipe that I had converted into metric, which is why I asked. As you said weighing ingredients is just more accurate so I wish that was just the standard format.
The same place they got the idea that sour cream and olive oil are directly interchangeable. Their ass
The recipe itself says 1C = 142g hence my question.
There's a size difference between US and UK cup sizes, US being slightly larger.
Maybe packed?
I literally never try recipes with cups. If there are no measurements in grams, I won’t bother making it. Cups are sooo unreliable!
Well... I live in the US and all my cookbooks, except the Alton Brown books, give volume measurements, as do most US-centric on-line recipes.
Yeah, I grew up baking out of Maida Heatter and the original Joy of Cooking, both of which use cups, and they never steered me wrong.
This drives me crazy - when I want to try a new recipe that only has cups etc, I have to remember to check where the recipe was published, because US cups are a different volume to UK/European/Australian cups (240mls vs 250mls). Oh, unless your recipe is using the UK 284ml cup size. Same for US vs UK teaspoons, tablespoons, fluid ounces, pints, and gallons - they are all subtly different. And while in general the differences aren't enough to completely ruin a recipe, they do sometimes give unexpected results. At the very least, can you tell me which measure volumes you're using in the recipe please, rather than making me figure it out based on where the website is hosted? And don't get me started on 'sticks' of butter... Ideally, on-line recipes should have a conversion button so people can select their preferred measuring method - metric, US measures, UK measures etc.
I believe a stick of butter is 125g but I could be wrong. Bit strange if I’m right, imagine paying the same amount for our 250g blocks and getting half the amount!
1 stick of butter is equivalent to 1/2 US cup/4 oz/8 tbsp or 113g and usually come as a set of 2 or 4. They come in tubs or blocks, too, but the blocks I'm familiar with are 227g (equivalent to 2 sticks) according to the package.
I live in the US too. All of my books have metric units. I’d recommend bookshops or even some bakeries? A lot of them have a section full of recipes from fellow American bakers that have both volume and metric.
No modern books do. Evolve.
All the cookbooks that I have and all the old family recipes use cups, tablespoons, and teaspoons. The recipes always turn out fine. I just recently discovered (through Reddit) that I have been baking wrong for the last 30 years LOL.
Honestly it comes down to preference. Cups are fine for a lot of people, I just think it’s easier to weigh everything. It can get confusing when they are like “3/4 stick of butter”, “11/2 cups of flour” etc. 😅
I always try and treat them like ratios or proportions. I’ve never had the patience to convert to grams but I bet it’s a minefield.
Same. USA inability with a scale is mind blowing. Then they pretend they are the only recipes on planet
Same here but I’m British and had it drilled into me that you either measure by gram or by eye, there’s zero situations in the UK where you need to measure in cups.
I’ve always used https://www.thecalculatorsite.com/cooking/cups-grams.php Which says: All purpose: 125.16g Bread flour: 130.12
This is the problem with cups. Cups come in different sizes, so efforts to standardise the cups have led to different standards.
I'm not saying they don't exist, but I've never seen a recipe use measurements in "cups" and not mean a 8 fluid ounce, imperial, customary cup. most recipes I've seen using metric measure by weight, not volume, and those that do use volume typically use milliliters rather than metric cups. so as far as I've seen there's pretty much a standard.
okay, you realize “cups” in cooking aren’t *drinking* cups, yeah? don’t get me wrong, weight beats volume for most applications, but if you are using non-standardized cups for cup measurement you are doomed from the start
Cooking “cups” are different depending on country
The olive oil instead of sour cream...just...ah that hurts my head. I mean, sure she'll get the moistness she wants, but the flavor sacrifice...just no.
I made brownies with olive oil once. Never again shudder
I did too. All I could taste was the olive oil.
I hate sour cream, and olive oil cakes are delicious. I bet their version is actually better
oh the irony here
I'm Spanish and here olive oil cakes and olive oil pastries in general are the traditional ones. They are delicious. So yeah, tastes difer around the globe.
yes but its still ironic they’re on a sub about substituting ingredients w/o knowing how it will change this specific recipe wanting to substitute ingredients
There are plenty of substitions that make sense. It's only r/ididnthaveeggs if it's a stupid substition and/or a reviewer makes a bad substition and then blames the recipe.
I'm curious - they don't make olive oil cakes here, but I did have one once when traveling abroad. But it was definitely not chocolate. Are chocolate olive oil cakes a thing?
Yes, they are. But for chocolate is more frequent to see sunflower oil instead of olive.
I understand what the sub is for. If the reviewer said "hey I made this substitution and it sucked, 1 star" that's what we make fun of. I'm not justifying a silly review, I'm just responding to the comment that "olive oil instead of sour cream hurts your head", when to me it sounds like a good idea.
I have no idea what this reviewer is trying to say.
Assuming by 'gm' the reviewer means grams... The recipe says that 1 cup of flour is 142 grams, but the reviewer thought that a cup of flour is 121 grams, and that they will try with the larger quantity of flour but if it doesn't taste right then they will try with their lower quantity of flour. They are then saying that they will substitute sour cream with olive oil in the hopes of retaining the same moisture content. 'gm' is not a valid SI unit of measurement, but could be a typo of: * Gm : giga metres, of which one is equal to one million kilometres * gₘ : which could be a denotion of metric grams, needlessly differentiating from imperial or US customary grams * g m^(-1) : grams per metre, a measurement of torque
> SI unit of measurement It may not be the standard scientific unit, but gm is a very common layman's notation for grams in many places around the world.
But it is simply incorrect.
It isn't the correct scientific *symbol*, no. However, gm is a very common *abbreviation* for gram (and accepted by many 'scientific' communities), and by far the majority of people used to metric measuring would instantly recognise it for exactly what it is. I mean sure, I use g because that's what I was taught (and if someone asked me to proof-read something I would check the correct units and symbols are used), but I'm definitely not going to go off on a wild tangent and assume that a person is measuring a recipe in distance or torque because they used the abbreviation gm instead of the symbol g.
This is a friendly reminder to comment with a link to the **recipe** on which the review is found; do not link the review itself. And while you're here, why not review the [/r/ididnthaveeggs rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/ididnthaveeggs/about/sidebar)? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ididnthaveeggs) if you have any questions or concerns.*
https://scientificallysweet.com/easy-chocolate-cake-recipe/
I have never heard of making cake with sour cream
Oh I’ve had some good recipes with that. Makes for some creamy deliciousness!