Equivalent Measures: The SciFi Side of Baking

Astoria Tree Tops

Hope your Chocolate Monday went well,
Earlier I had Hot Cocoa and Coffee with my hubby, I'm thankful for our times together. Today I want to talk about measuring, baking verses cooking. Cooking has more room for errors and you can work around them and get more good results. When it comes to Baking you will get a science lesson on how chemicals and formulas work together, after those lessons you can branch out with your creative prowess! One of the biggest hurdles is the math, fractions of this and that ingredient. For example, once you know 4 Tablespoons is 1/4 cup...your baking gets easier and you can move more effectively. Some recipes will tell you 3 tsp of something...that's 1 Tbsp. no need to do the same step 3 times, but God forbid you read those teaspoons as tablespoon or don't convert your grams and ounces properly! That's why reading a recipe through a couple of times is always a good practice. Practice being the main ingredient at mastering baking.

Yep, understanding measurements is just plain tricky, when your looking at recipes. One must be able to interpret the language of pounds to ounces or grams to cups. Also what to do with the ingredients is another factor to consider Some recipe will ask for 109 g. of warm eggs, while another ask for 8 oz of cold butter. For yrs. I used the my feeble math skills to convert and navigate recipes. Most of the time, my recipes turned out good, but I've had notable disasters that will be remembered for all time in our families archives! Haha...I can laugh at them now.

Pretty Cool Stuff!
No Storage issue

I have got to get these! :D

The internet has a huge array of online converters, to aid in getting the proper measurements, but a scale will save you so much time and disappointment too!  The goal is consistency, which is reached with exact measurements that work every time. Deviate from the formula you get something else...maybe better, maybe not;) Eye balling can only take us so far and when you want to have the same taste and feeling every time you make frosting, cake and cookies...a scale and proper measuring is key to achieve consistency.

Being able to find the equivalent measurements, making notes and having them at your finger tips is efficiency. Remembering for future recipes is genius! Below I've listed some of the Equivalents that help me get better baking results. Also at the bottom of the the home page I'm posting a converter. Hope it helps...till next time, Bake on! ;)

All through the ages scales have been a daily kitchen tool.  I was so excited the day my oldest son brought mine. I have a digital scale, but batteries...it's sort of like paying rent, you know what I mean? So I am on the look out for a manual one similar to this pink scale.

Equivalent Measurements
I will add to this as I gather more

1 teaspoon (tsp. or t.)

1 Tablespoon (Tbsp. Or. T.) = 3 t

2 ounces (oz.) = ¼ c. = 4 T

1 ounce (oz.) = 1/8 c.= 2 T

1/2 ounce (oz.) = 1T

4 oz. = ½ c.  = 8 T

6 oz. = ¾ c. = 12 T

8 oz. = 1 c. = 16 T.

1 pint(pt.) = 2 c. = 16 oz.

1 quart(qt) = 2 pt = 4 c. =32 oz.

½ gallon (gal.) = 2 qt. = 4 pt. = 8 c. = 64 oz.

1 gallon =4 qt. =8 pt. =16 c. = 128 oz.

1 pound ( lb or #) = 16 oz. = 2 c.

Measurements by Tbsp.

16 tablespoons = 1 cup
12 tablespoons = 3/4 cup
10 tablespoons + 2 teaspoons = 2/3 cup
8 tablespoons = 1/2 cup
6 tablespoons = 3/8 cup
5 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon = 1/3 cup
4 tablespoons = 1/4 cup
2 tablespoons = 1/8 cup
2 tablespoons + 2 teaspoons = 1/6 cup
1 tablespoon = 1/16 cup
2 cups = 1 pint
2 pints = 1 quart
3 teaspoons = 1 tablespoon
48 teaspoons = 1 cup
24 teaspoons = 1/2 cup
12 teaspoons = 1/4 cup
6 teaspoons =1/8 cup

tsp – Tbsp – Cup Conversion Chart

June 20, 2007

This chart helps visualize how to convert the different volume measurements used in cooking. Rows where different units match up are highlighted. Take a look around the rest of my site while you are here.

Teaspoon (tsp)	Tablespoon ( Tbsp )	Cup
1
2
3	1
4
5
6	2
7
8
9	3
10
11
12	4	1/4
13
14
15	5
16		1/3
17
18	6
19
20
21	7
22
23
24	8	1/2
25
26
27	9
28
29
30	10
31
32		2/3
33	11
34
35
36	12	3/4
37
38
39	13
40
41
42	14
43
44
45	15
46
47
48	16	1

I found this on a strange site called cookography.com 

When your looking at Tbsp. and Tsp. be careful of the abbreviations...you don't want to add Tablespoons of salt when you were supposed to add teaspoons! I've been there done that, not fun!