During the previous round of shirkflation I warned people about knowing what year a recipe was from because “a can” means something different in 2004 than in 2010. And now it means something different again in 2025.
Now boxes are getting the shrink treatment too.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.bestiver.se/post/618032
Cmon man, there’s two kinds of recipes: one with exact measurements and precise instructions, usually written in metric with a lot of notes and contingencies… and then there’s general guideline cheat sheets and refreshers, which you use when you already know how to cook it.
If a recipe tells me “a couple spoonsful” and I don’t know what to do, the problem is not the recipe, it’s that I don’t know what I’m doing.
So what do you do? you learn. or I guess you could be like NileRed and watch food burn in front of your face because you don’t want to deviate from the recipe. over and over again. but hopefully you’ll learn to deviate soon.
You are confusing baking with cooking.
Baking is much closer to a science than cooking. It is all about precise measurements, and you have to be a very good baker to “wing it” and end up with a consistently good end product.
American here. I always sucked at baking until I discovered a UK site using the metric master race measurements.
It was all in grams instead of tablespoons/ounces/cups.
Suddenly my shit was perfect…
baking by volume is INSANE why would anyone do that?!
i remember as a kid my nan telling me to not pack the flour too tightly in the cups or the measurement will be off. like why not just weigh the flour?!
I often have issues explaining to literally everyone that oz and fl oz are not the same… Only true match is water which is what it was created for.
8oz is weight.
8 fl oz is volume…
So a cup of flour is a volume measurement of something that should be measured by weight.
I bought a food scale and gram everything now.
I have two scales in the kitchen. One regular digital food scale I use all the time. One that’s better suited for measuring cocaine that I bought when I was needing a lot more precision to brew one gallon batches of beer.
I use my food scale for brewing espresso.
I understand needing the miligram scale for yeast doing microbrew. My family already calls me a scientist for espresso. That scale would be funny in my kitchen.
Most recipes will use the volume measurement since everyone has measuring cups and almost no one has a food scale. Flour is close enough to a fluid anyway.
You still have issues with packed vs unpacked and leveled spoons with flour/baking soda/baking powder. Grams are just more precise.
I have a pancake recipe in grams.
There are recipes based on package sizes which is fine for chocolate chips or nuts but becomes intensely problematic when it is leavening ingredients. Half-a box of bisquick was a valid measure when there was one size on the shelf.
Some of my family recipes go back 150-250 years so along the way some of the collection contains cards calling for a tin of x, y, or z. I still sometimes use a ham glaze that calls for a bottle of coca cola.
Oh, man, “bottle of Coca-Cola”. When I was a kid, that meant a 16 ounce glass bottle, but prior to that it could have been 8 ounces, 10 ounces. Now it could be 1, 2, or even 3 liters.
This is old where it is glass because that was the only option.
Do they still sell 3 liters? I haven’t seen one in ages.
I see them mostly at import shops.
If it says a couple spoonfuls then you are golden to abandon all fear and just go with it. That’s half my curry recipes. How much curry do you want? How much can you handle?