Measurement problems

[celticdragonfly]

Oh damn damn damn.

I was poking through my various bread books on the shelf, looking for a basic bread recipe that did not use milk. Saw one. Oh yes, this is the book that I haven't used because it's British, so it's all in pints of water and pounds of flour.

So got selenite to pull up conversions for me. Oh, the liquid measuring cup has pints on it anyway, so that's easy. And he gave me lbs to cups of flour.

Well, now that it's in the second rise (of 3), I am poking about and reading through more of the book - and I find a British-American conversion chart.

British pints are not the same as American pints. British tsp and tbsp are not the same as American tsp and tbsp.

So the bread will probably be awful.

DAMN.

I am considering hurling the book into the trash.

Now I need to start over finding a different milk-free recipe. Darn it, this one was appealing - it's a three-rise batter-rising recipe, a lot of work but it sounded like it would be really nice.

Comments

[tepintzin.livejournal.com]

What part of the milk is problematic? Can soymilk be used, skim, or Lactaid?

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure. I'm keeping my youngest mostly off dairy for now, as a dietary experience.

Oh, what the heck - I just unlocked my earlier post today on that.

Soymilk would be fine, but I'm not sure if I want to be bothered to buy it.

I'm still trying to figure out what to glaze the crust with - egg white or yolk is traditional - and out. Milk is supposed to produce a nice soft crust - and is out. Butter too. Water gets a crisp crust - I really didn't want that effect. I wonder what I'd get just from oil.

[patgund.livejournal.com]

This has been a big help for me here in Qatar:

http://www.onlineconversion.com/

The cooking volume subsection is here

http://www.onlineconversion.com/cooking_volume.htm

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

Well, the book has the conversion page. But it's stuff like 1 tsp to "1 rounded tsp".

[kk1raven.livejournal.com]

Don't give up on that recipe yet. I use British and Australian cookbooks at least as often as American ones. You'll get used to the differences if you work with them a bit, and in the meantime, pencils work well for adding the measurement you're used to to the cookbook once you do the conversions the first time.

The difference between British and American tablespoons and teaspoons is not likely to matter. None of my cookbooks that have conversion charts or dual measurements even bother with that difference. The conversion factor is something like .96 British to 1 American. (Australian tablespoons are another matter. They contain four teaspoons instead of three. That can make a big difference.)

"Rounded" just means you don't level the spoon off after scooping. That's not an exact measurement anyway. It just means a bit more than the actual size of the spoon.

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

I had written in the conversions for the flour and the yeast, which I'd thought were the only ones I needed.

The bread came out good anyway. I theorize that it's because I don't pay that much attention to the precise final flour amount - you have to knead more in until it's "right", anyway. So that probably evened things out.