I have a recipe in American "cups". Can anyone tell me what the equivalent is in either imperial or metric?!
Answers: The ingredients in cups are butter, sugar and flour if that makes a difference.
Yes it does make a difference. Cups are a measure of volume, and as different ingredients have different densities, a cupful of butter would not weigh the same as a cupful of sugar.
See the links for cups to grams conversion of a number of everyday ingredients.
The second link provided by the first poster is the one I use if I need to convert, but it's easy enough to find measuring cups in the shops nowadays. Most of the bigger supermarkets stock them and any good independent bakeware shop should carry them too. I got mine from Tescos for under a fiver but have seen them in Asda and Sainsburys too, as well as Fenwicks (slightly more expensive) and I believe Lakeland do some too.
This is a reply for a question you asked me earlier,here is the whole story :essex huricane appeal,hope you enjoy it
A major hurricane (Shazza) and earthquake measuring 5.8 on the Richter scale hit Essex in the early hours of Friday with its epicentre in Basildon.
Victims were seen wandering around aimlessly, muttering "faaackinell".
The hurricane decimated the area causing approximately ￡30 worth of damage.
Several priceless collections of mementos from Majorca and the Costa Del Sol were damaged beyond repair.
Three areas of historic burnt out cars were disturbed.
Many locals were woken well before their giros arrived.
Essex FM reported that hundreds of residents were confused and bewildered and were still trying to come to terms with the fact that something interesting had happened in Basildon.
One resident - Tracy Sharon Smith, a 15-year-old mother of 5 said "It was such a shock, my little Chardonnay-Mercedes came running into my bedroom crying. My youngest two, Tyler-Morgan and Megan-Storm slept through it all. I was still shaking when I was watching Trisha the next morning."
Apparently though, looting, muggings and car crime were unaffected and carried on as normal.
The British Red Cross has so far managed to ship 4,000 crates of Sunny Delight to the area to help the stricken locals.
Rescue workers are still searching through the rubble and have found large quantities of personal belongings, including benefit books, jewellery from Elizabeth Duke at Argos and Bone China from Poundland.
HOW CAN YOU HELP?
This appeal is to raise money for food and clothing parcels for those unfortunate enough to be caught up in this disaster. Clothing is
most sought after - items most needed include:
-- Fila or Burberry baseball caps
-- Kappa tracksuit tops (his and hers)
-- Shell suits (female)
-- White sport socks
-- Rockport boots
-- Any other items usually sold in Primark.
Food parcels may be harder to come by, but are needed all the same.
Required foodstuffs include:
-- Microwave meals
-- Tins of baked beans
-- Ice cream
-- Cans of Colt 45 or Special Brew.
22p buys a biro for filling in the compensation forms
￡2 buys chips, crisps and blue fizzy drinks for a family of 9
￡5 will pay for a packet of B&H and a lighter to calm the nerves of those affected.
**Breaking news**
Rescue workers found a girl in the rubble smothered in raspberry alcho-pop
'where are you bleeding from?' they asked," ROMFORD" said the girl, "woss that gotta do wiv you?"
Manual conversions aren't easy - the link in the first answer is good though.
If you can't be bothered to work it out or buy a cheap set of cups (i picked some up for about ￡2), for most recipes you can just use a normal cup - an american cup is roughly the size of a teacup - just be sure to use the same size cup throughout your recipe and be careful about judging the half cups etc. It's just about judging the ratio of ingredients. Very few recipes need you to be precise enough that you can't use this method.