Recipe Conversion?!
Answers: I have a recipe that calls for 1/4 cup brown sugar firmly packed...what is the difference in weight and how much does it weigh?
Brown Sugar, packed: 1 cup = 7.75 oz
So one quarter of that would be just under 2 ounces! =)
I'm not sure that I can answer your question as to weight. I just know that firmly packed brown sugar means that you firmly pack the brown sugar into your measuring cup. I just spoon it into my measuring cup or pour it out of the bag into my cup and take a spoon and pack it down and repeat the process until I have the right about firmly packed brown sugar.
Volume cannot be converted into weight, it is impossible. It would be the same thing as trying to convert inches into pounds.
VOLUME and WEIGHT are two completely different concepts, just as LENGTH and WEIGHT are.
The only thing you can do is to measure out the brown sugar using the measuring cup and then weigh it. It will not always be the same every time because food varies in density. A cup of flour, for example, usually weighs more in the winter than in the summer because of the moisture in the air. This can have a disastrous effect on a recipe, especially in baking!!
In cooking, a cup of butter or water is 8 ounces. A cup of water or butter also weighs approximately 8 ounces. But not exactly!! In restaurants and bakeries where large volume recipes are made, converting a weight into a volume (when dealing with water or butter) or vice versa could really mess up the recipe!! Especially in baking.
This confusion between weight and volume is due to the fact that the morons who invented the English System gave the same unit name (ounces) to both volume and weight.
In Europe, cookbooks are written with dry ingredients given in weight measurements and liquids given in volume measurements (except in some baking formulas where the liquid is weighed). In my opinion, dry ingredients should NEVER be measured using a measuring cup. It is a lot more accurate to weigh it as this eliminates the density problem.
I have come across numerous recipes that call for a dry ingredient listed in ounces. They fail to mention if these are weight or volume ounces. This is very frustrating!!
My suggestion to you would be to purchase a kitchen scale. If a recipe works well, weigh the dry ingredients and make a note in your cookbook.
Hopes this helps