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I must have been living in a hole, because until yesterday, I never knew that there was a difference between an American cup and a Canadian cup. It can't be all that much, since I've used the two interchangeably for years, but it has ruffled my feathers and made me wonder if all of my baking would've been just a little bit better had I known this earlier.
It all came on the heels of me trying to transcribe a recipe that had everything by weight. Personally, I like weighing my dry goods, but I like to throw in a cup here or there when it's a liquid. But now I have to watch my cups, and figure weight, and be sure that my calculations are for the right ingredients. I get the differences between measuring systems, and I grumble my way through density and volume, but this is something different. A cup can't be a cup if the two sizes are different! That's just silly -- especially in an age where we get recipes from all over the globe.
And I wasn't even going to write about it until I read that Haagen-Dazs was shrinking their pints from 16 ounces to 14 ounces. You can't shrink a unit of measurement! What's wrong with people!?
A pint is not a pint unless it's a pint! A cup is not a cup unless it's a cup!
[via Serious Eats]
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3-10-2009 @6:17PM Shorted said... If you think that's bad, try a gay male dating site. You will soon discover an inch is not an inch...
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3-10-2009 @6:51PM pedantic said... 1 Imperial fluid ounce = 0.960760338 US fluid ounces
So 1 imperial cup is ~7.7 US oz. That's about a difference of 1.9 US teaspoons or 9.3 mL. It really starts to add up once you go to gallons.
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3-10-2009 @7:14PM Lydia said... It doesn't surprise me that Haagen-Dazs is doing that seeing as how their parent company (Dreyers/Edys) did that with their "quarts" a LONG time ago; while I don't know if they call them "quarts", it is still assumed by most people that they hold the same as the ice cream containers that are comparable in price/size. Check it out next time you're in the ice cream aisle; they are not full quarts, whereas usually the store brands are.
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3-10-2009 @7:27PM CookingSchoolConfidential.com said... Are you serious? And here I am trying to memorize all my weights and measurements (I'm a culinary school student). If you throw this bit of information into the mix, I am surely going to explode!
Cheers!
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3-10-2009 @8:54PM barbpop1 said... A Canadian "cup" and a US "cup" , as used in most recipes, are both 8 ounces, so for most baking recipes there is no difference.
If a recipe calls for a pint, there is a difference. A Canadian (Imperial is the proper name) quart is 40 ounces, and American quart is only 32 ounces. So a pint is 16 ounces US versus 20 ounces Imperial.
But if the measurements are cups, teaspoons, tablespoons etc.. there is no difference. The best way is to weigh which is why all Euro recipes are by weight-no mistakes then!!
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3-10-2009 @10:31PM LeisureGuy said... One of the common problems of the non-metric systems is disagreement about the size of units. Take a league, for example: the length of that varies all over the place. According to my reading, a "cup" is 8 fl. oz. in the US and 10 fl. oz. in the UK. And of course "ounce" is another of those unit problems (what with fluid ounce, avoirdupois ounce, and troy ounce). This is one reason that every nation on earth, with the exception of the US, Liberia, and Burma, every nation on earth has adopted the metric system of measurement. The problem is that the US lives in an international backwater in many ways (broadband speeds, for example, or no national healthcare system).
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3-11-2009 @12:35AM doodoolemonque said... I just don't see the problem. I find that most recipes are pretty forgiving of minor variations in quantity, if not substance. Different flours will make a different cake, but a variation of a teaspoon or even a tablespoon will hardly impact the crumb.
A dozen large eggs will likely include a dozen different quantities of egg. Different butter brands will have different fat contents. I'm no cooking student, but have decades of experience which have taught me not to sweat this stuff. It just doesn't matter. It may matter to culinary school teachers who use this stuff to terrify young chefs, control them and, as you suggest, make their heads explode, but in the real world? Not hardly.
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3-11-2009 @4:26AM Leah said... We don't use "cups" in the UK, except when following US recipes. So I'd be surprised if there's a 10oz UK cup (except that actual coffee mugs, probably used as fallback if someone doesn't have any measuring cups, are probably around 10oz.
A British pint is 20oz, though.
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3-11-2009 @4:28AM Leah said... Although those are 20 imperial ounces. So a British pint is (20*0.960760338) US ounces = 19.21 US ounces.
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3-11-2009 @10:20AM Adam Fields said... Similarly, you can throw away the 6oz cups that come with your rice cooker and use a regular 8oz one (unless you're using the calibrated lines on the inside to measure water, which I've never done). All that matters is the proportions.
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3-11-2009 @10:33AM Donovan said... Ben and Jerry's put out an email saying that they will not be reducing their size. "No pint shrinkage for me, please. I plan on enjoying the total experience."
http://consumerist.com/5164505/ben--jerrys-announces-their-grocery-shrink-ray-immunity
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3-12-2009 @10:04AM Astin said... Funny that everyone's still talking in ounces.
Metric doesn't go by the ounce, it uses millilitres for volume, and grams for weight.
1 US Cup 8 fl oz = 236ml or 1/4 quart
1 CAN Cup = 250ml or 1/4 litre
A 14ml difference, or nearly a tablespoon (which is the same across the board). I imagine that with some REALLY touchy baking recipes, this could have an effect, especially if you're using 4 or 5 cups of something.
But I find that as long as you use instruments using the same measurement basis (ie.- don't mix and match measuring cup sets), then there isn't a problem since the proportion tends to stay in line.
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3-12-2009 @12:53PM jennywenny said... I found out recently that the australian cups are different too! Thankfully the recipes I've been following have also had metric weights on there too, which I feel a lot more comfortable with. I'd be happy if everyone did everything solid by weight.
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