February 15, 2011 12:11 AM GMT
I think this subject deserves a thread of its own. Melody has provided a link to some comprehensive UK/US conversion tables:
http://www.hostelscentral[...]38.html
There's a fairly important point below all the tables on this link, about the difference between US and UK liquid measurements:
"
The American liquid measures are only 4/5 of the UK, or Imperial, measures. So the pint here is 20 fl.oz, not 16..."
So bear the following in mind if fluid ounces or pints are used in a recipe:
1 Imperial pint (20 UK fl oz) = 568.261485 millilitres
1 US pint (16 US fl oz) = 473.176473 millilitres
1 Imperial fluid ounce = 28.4130742 millilitres
1 US fluid ounce = 29.5735296 millilitres
There’s only a difference of about 100ml between a US and UK pint, but that may be enough to affect a delicate recipe. Not to mention beer drinkers across the UK…
As for cups, which in England are things we drink tea from…
I’ve always wondered exactly how much “a cup” is, and if I’ve understood correctly, a cup is not a measurement of weight, but of volume. So a cup of flour will weigh more than a cup of marshmallows. It’s therefore best to use a measuring jug rather than try to convert cups to ounces or grams, or find a cup in your cupboard that holds 236.59ml (half of a US pint) of liquid.
There’s quite a good article on Wiki if you’re bothered about all this stuff:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w[...]easures
But I don’t fret about weights and measurements too much. Part of the fun for me is working out what went wrong and adjusting the recipe accordingly; trial and error, sometimes takes me a few goes…