The Metric European Kitchen

August 27, 2008 9:43 AM

Yet another baking question...this time I'm looking to figure out some good recipes to bake in Northern Europe

Obviously lots of people bake here in Scandinavia, but there seem to be some differences. For example, baking soda isn't really used here in baking and it took me some effort to find that. Besides that, all my recipes are in American measures and it's annoying to convert them. So what I'm looking for are English websites analogous to Epicurious/Allrecipes, but that use the metric system and it would be awesome if they used ingredients that are common here.

I'm also interested in what sort of measuring cups/spoons people you use in Europe. My roommates don't cook much...so I'm sort of confused and maybe this is a stupid question. I found some American-style teaspoon ones at the local Ikea, but what sort of thing should I use when a recipe calls for X grams of honey? (don't ask what Fjällbrynt is...it's very strange and I'm trying to figure out what to go without).

posted by melissam to food & drink (15 comments total)

Argh, also is there are site for expatriates that explains some ingredients? Like what kind of flour here is equivalent to all-purpose?
posted by melissam at 9:45 AM on August 27, 2008

I've had a LOT of success with Joy of Baking since they include weight (grams) next to their volume (cups) measurements. I've found the key to be this: get a scale. I have a small, digital scale I picked up for about 30 euro and it's *awesome*. There are dozens of conversion sites for flour, sugar, etc. I just type '1 cup of flour in grams' into google (each time, cause I am so disorganized...) and something pops up. Actually, this one is probably my favorite.

I've never had any problems buying either baking soda or baking powder here in Poland. Brown sugar is a lot more common than it ever ways before, you can get it at any large grocery store, the better stores carry dozens of varieties. I cut up chocolate bars instead of buying chocolate chips (they're much, much better quality anyway), I roast my own nuts. I avoid recipes that require corn syrup. I haven't had luck finding baker's chocolate, sometimes I'll use dark chocolate (like 70% lindt) and reduce the sugar.

If you want to chat or discuss substitution ideas, send me a message, nice to see I'm not the only one doing this.
posted by jedrek at 10:11 AM on August 27, 2008

Welcome to our neck of the woods.

Here's a page in Swedish to get you started: www.recepten.se
posted by monocultured at 10:12 AM on August 27, 2008

Why not get a food scale? You can get good ones for about $30 (I like this guy), and using weight measurements instead of volume is way better for baking anyway, which often requires a greater precision of measurement than scooping-and-leveling can provide.

It's my understanding that food scales are more widely used in Europe, so that may be why you're having such difficulty finding measuring spoons and cups.
posted by schroedinger at 10:18 AM on August 27, 2008

I don't know how you'd normally weigh something like honey but I'd weigh the container, remove an approximate amount then weigh the container again - rinse and repeat until the container weighs X less
posted by missmagenta at 10:26 AM on August 27, 2008

All purpose flour would be plain flour in the UK, I don't know if there are other names for it. FYI I find wikipedia and google useful for europe -> us translations and vice versa
posted by missmagenta at 10:32 AM on August 27, 2008

The Local is an expat site in Sweden, they have forums that are probably good for this sort of thing. I have had no real trouble just converting recipes, most of scandinavia uses the deciliter measure that is very handy.

Amerikanska.com is for americans in Sweden, they have a cooking forum.

One US cup is 2.3 dl, so just under 2 and a half deciliters. It is a volume measurement so you can't just convert it to grams. Grams of flowing honey is a stupidass measurement, most sensible sites would give it in ml, in other words teaspoons. I would make a wild guess that they want two teaspoons there.

It would appear I would be wrong, Answers.com says:
A teaspoon of honey weighs 21 grams and contains 17 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fat and 0 grams of protein. So half a teaspoon then.
posted by Iteki at 10:50 AM on August 27, 2008

The invaluable Cooks Thesarus. Also invaluable Gourmet Sleuth's Conversion pages

At the 1€ store I found a set of those adjustable measuring spoons that had both fractions of Tablespoons/Teaspoons & corresponding grams marked on them. If you can find something similar, it'd be useful for the grams of honey situation.

As for cups, I had some cup measures that I had found at IKEA, but they've been lost in a move. So I use a scale when I have a new recipe and need to be more precise. When I'm winging it, I've gotten quite good at eyeballing/using the Nutella glasses we have an abundance of.
posted by romakimmy at 10:51 AM on August 27, 2008

The BBC website has a very large food section, with some rather nice recipes.
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 11:02 AM on August 27, 2008

Buy a digital cooking scale that doesn't have a pan. Just a flat scale. There will be plenty of these to choose from in any shop that sells cooking equipment.

Put the mixing bowl or the saucepan that you will be using on the scale. Zero the scale. Tip in the right amount of the first ingredient. If it's honey, you can dribble it in until you get to the right amount. Zero the scale. Tip in the next ingredient. Zero again. And so on.
posted by emilyw at 11:04 AM on August 27, 2008

There is no way a teaspoon of honey weighs 21g, unless maybe you're weighing the spoon as well (my scales are only accurate to 5g, and they claim a teaspoon weighs beteeen 15 & 20g) . Or unless it's really crystallised and you've got a massive heap of it. Everyone in this (British) household agrees that grams of honey is a silly measurement, and that 10g might be about 1 tsp.

Maybe British recipes are different than continental ones, but we've never had a problem finding bicarbonate of soda, which I'm guessing is baking soda under another name. Cream of tartar, the other half of baking powder, can be a little harder to get hold of. And there is no way I would try to bake without scales and a measuring jug, unless I was using the one recipe I know that's been converted from the American. I've never used measuring spoons, just ordinary tbsp/dessert/tsps.
posted by Lebannen at 11:23 AM on August 27, 2008

As a (British) expat in Sweden I can agree with most of the above. Annoying as it can be to convert recipes, learning to be imperial / metric 'bilingual' does increase ones options, and isn't that hard in the long run.

The biggest British recipe-site I know of is, as already mentioned, the BBC's - not on the scale of Epicurious, but another useful resource to know about.

We have a set of measuring cups with US-style & metric measures (1 cup = 240 ml, etc.) that I think we bought here in Sweden (maybe at Verner & Verner, I'm not sure) - although of course that doesn't always help with Swedish recipes, where the decilitre (1 dl = 100 ml = about 0.4 cups) is oftenest the basic unit of volume. We also use a digital cooking scale.
posted by misteraitch at 2:05 PM on August 27, 2008

Oh, and you should be able to find baking soda as bikarbonat - not as ubiquitous as bakpulver but I think most supermarkets have it.
posted by misteraitch at 2:08 PM on August 27, 2008

Chocolate and Zucchini is a great recipe blog written by a Frenchwoman who posts recipes in metric measurements. Here's her conversion page. She bakes A LOT - here's her list of recipes. Everything's in English.

The idea to get a digital cooking scale is awesome - I got one for my birthday and use it ALL THE TIME.
posted by mdonley at 3:52 PM on August 27, 2008

Ah:

"As most of you know, Americans typically measure ingredients by volume, while the French measure them by weight. "

Guess that some of us don't know...haha. Guess I'll head to IKEA and look for an Ordning
posted by melissam at 12:10 AM on August 28, 2008