Recipe Conversions

Now that our recipes are mostly online (here), it probably makes sense to post our carefully compiled conversion charts online too. We decided pretty early on after moving here, and not having a dishwasher (gasp!) that we like the metric system and weighing our stuff. It helps to limit the amount of dish washing necessary before and after a cooking project.

These conversions are what we use and we’ve developed these tables out of necessity. If you know of other handy conversions, please post them here as comments.

Butter
Flour
Shortening
Sugar
Pumkpkin Puree
Half & Half
Temperature
Yeast

Butter

You don’t really use margarine for cooking, do you?
1 tablespoon → 12.5 g
1/3 Cup → 73 g
An American stick of butter is 8 tablespoons, so one stick is 8×12.5g, or 100g

Flour

3/4 Cup → 104 g
1 Cup → 138 g
1 1/2 Cup → 207 g

Shortening (“Pflanzenfett“)

1/2 C → 90 g

Sugar
Brown Sugar

You know that squishy, moist molassey sweet stuff that every grocery store carries in at least two varieties at home in the States? Yeah, good luck getting that here. Try your local Asian market (“China Laden”); that’s where Sarah found it in Regensburg.

3/4 Cup → 157 g

Powered (Confectioner’s) Sugar

1 Cup → 148 g

White, Granulated Sugar

2/3 Cup → 140 g
3/4 Cup → 158 g
7/8 Cup → 184 g
1 Cup → 210 g

Pumpkin Puree

One cup of pumpkin puree = 330g. Presumably, a 15oz can of pumpkin puree yields two cups, but that’s pure speculation, since we generally get our pumpkin guts right from the pumpkin.

Half & Half

3 parts whole milk to one part whipping cream makes half & half. You need this for all those American ice cream recipes. Don’t ask me what double cream or heavy cream is; I only know whole milk (and various fat reductions) and Schlagsahne.
OK, fine: I’ll do the math for you.

Half-and-Half Milk Whipping cream
cups ml cups ml cups ml
1.000 237 0.750 177 0.250 59
1.125 266 0.844 177 0.281 59
1.250 296 0.938 222 0.313 74
1.333 315 1.000 237 0.333 79
1.375 325 1.031 244 0.344 81
1.500 355 1.125 266 0.375 89
1.625 384 1.219 288 0.406 96
1.667 394 1.250 296 0.417 99
1.750 414 1.313 311 0.438 104
1.875 444 1.406 333 0.469 111
2.000 473 1.500 355 0.500 118
2.125 503 1.594 377 0.531 126
2.250 532 1.688 399 0.563 133
2.333 552 1.750 414 0.583 138
2.375 562 1.781 421 0.594 140
2.500 592 1.875 444 0.625 148
2.625 621 1.969 466 0.656 155
2.667 631 2.000 473 0.667 158
2.750 651 2.063 488 0.688 163
2.875 680 2.156 510 0.719 170
3.000 710 2.250 532 0.750 177
3.125 739 2.344 555 0.781 185
3.250 769 2.438 577 0.813 192
3.333 789 2.500 592 0.833 197
3.375 799 2.531 599 0.844 200
3.500 828 2.625 621 0.875 207
3.625 858 2.719 643 0.906 214
3.750 887 2.813 665 0.938 222
3.875 917 2.906 688 0.969 229
4.000 946 3.000 710 1.000 237
Temperature

Of course, these are the easiest to look up using something like convert-me.com. But having them here for quick reference doesn’t hurt; it’s not like they’re going to change any time soon.

°F °C
300 149
310 155
320 160
330 166
340 171
350 177
360 182
370 188
380 193
390 199
400 204
410 210
420 216
430 221
440 227
450 232
Yeast

So many recipes we have found online or elsewhere assume

  • there is only one kind of yeast, or
  • all yeast is packaged in the same way, or
  • it doesn’t matter, or
  • you know what they mean.

Those points are all really annoying.

Fortunately, we found this yeast converter online. The bonus here is that it not only converts between different kinds of yeast, but also different measurement methods: volume (e.g., cups or spoons) and mass (grams or ounces). This is especially helpful for those of us trying to follow recipes written based on teaspoons of instant or active dry yeast by substituting with grams of fresh (a.k.a cake or compressed) yeast.

We will be very sad if this site ever goes dark. Here’s the basic underlying formula, copied wholesale from that site:

1 part instant yeast (100%) = 3 parts fresh compressed yeast (300%) = 1.5 parts active dry yeast (150%)

3 thoughts on “Recipe Conversions”

  1. Sandra Barnett June 27th, 2017

    I wanted to convert using mashed potatoes from 420 grams to measuring cups.

    Reply
    1. Sarah July 2nd, 2017

      Hi Sandra,

      Here’s my ballpark estimation: 420 g of prepared mashed potatoes would be about 1.70 cups.

      That said, this one’s pretty tricky. You sort of have to play a few mind games; you’re talking about two different modes of measurement. The gram measurement is one of weight, the cup one of volume.

      If it doesn’t need to be exact (and since we’re talking about mashed potatoes, I’m going to assume it doesn’t), a general guideline = a little less than 250 g is about 1 cup.

      Reply
  2. Sandra Barnett July 2nd, 2017

    Thank you. I did some research on the internet and found some interesting info in some recipe sites.

    Reply

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