Why do Americans measure everything in cups?
Why do Americans measure everything in cups?
Used a couple of US recipes recently and most of the ingredients are in cups, or spoons, not by weight. This is a nightmare to convert. Do Americans not own scales or something? What's the reason for measuring everything by volume?
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American here but I do a lot of baking, I do own a scale and prefer to weigh ingredients because I'm amazed at the different quantities of flour I can get from cup to cup depending how packed the flour is or how I scoop it.
Yeah, that's the sort of thing which worries me. I suppose if it's a recipe which doesn't need precise measurements it doesn't matter.
Baking can be troublesome, but it's usually only flour that gets compacted to a problematic degree. Most good recipes will at least specify "sifted". Otherwise, volume works about as well, and the cups and spoons will be standardized measurements with only a dim historical connection to the kind of insanity you may be be picturing.
Mass would probably still be better of course, it's just not quite the literal madness that some think.
There's also volume measurements of things like butter and honey, which are their own nightmare. Yeah, I'm totally going to carve 17 3/4 tablespoons of butter...
General rule when measuring by volume is to not pack it unless the recipe says to.