Measuring Cups

© Copyright 2009. All rights reserved and enforced

A Measuring Cup is used to measure liquid ingredients. In the UK, they are delineated in pints and ounces, and in metric. In North America, they are delineated in cups and ounces, and in metric. In the rest of the world, they are delineated in metric.

North America confuses the rest of the world by also using Measuring Cups to measure dry ingredients.

The difficulty in measuring with cups is that cups isn't a term of commerce. Items that are measured in North American kitchens by volume using cups, such as sugar, butter and flour, are actually sold by weight. A pound of flour is always a pound of flour, whether sifted or not, but this is not so for a cup of flour. If you take a cup of flour and sift it and put it back in the cup, you will now have more than a cup of flour. Another example is a cup of walnuts: whole, halves, chopped, and ground will all yield a different weight of walnuts.

In an attempt to control this possible disparity, recipe writers will often attempt to describe precisely how they want you to put the ingredient in the cup by using adjectives such as:
generous, loosely-packed, tightly-packed, scant, rounded, heaping, sifted, level, etc.

Coffee machine makers seem now to refer to a cup as something that must be a 100 or 125 ml (3 or 4 oz) cup. Their cup measurement doesn't match up with any kitchen Measuring Cup, let alone any coffee cups or mugs that anybody actually uses to drink out of. But they can do that, as cup is not a legally defined term.

Dry Measuring Cups

In North America, there are cups for dry measure and cups for liquid measure. Most cooking instructors direct you to buy both. In truth, Measuring Cups are hardly ever labelled as such in the stores, perhaps because few outside of Home Economics instructor circles really know the difference. If you did manage to find some with packaging clearly labelled as one or the other, unless you knew the difference to look for you, you wouldn't be able to remember which was which after you got the packaging off.

The single difference between wet and dry cups are the rims. Liquid ones have a pour spout on them, dry ones don't. Dry Measuring Cups are meant to be filled right up to their rim. They generally look like large measuring spoon sets. They have straight sides, flat narrow rims and flat bottoms. The idea is that you take a knife and whoosh it across the top to level it off. Good ones have the measurement both on the handle, and on the back, so that if you hang them up, you can easily see the measurement on the back for quick access.

Dry Measuring Cups are easy to use as scoops straight in the flour bin, etc. Some put very long handles on them for just this purpose, so that your knuckles don't end up dusted in flour. But if the handles are too heavy, they won't sit level on a counter -- the heavy handles just tip the flat bottoms over. Be careful, though, using metal ones to scoop up stuff like hard butter, etc: the handles tend to bend easily.

Dry Measuring Cups are actually technically liquid measures -- they measure in volume. 1 cup of water from them will be 8 oz, just as in a liquid cup. There is no official "dry cup" -- there couldn't be, as dry varies so much depending on what you are weighing: rice, macaroni and flour don't fit into the cup in the same way, so it's only the volume that is measured, not the actual quantity in weight.

In practice, most people just use what they have as a Dry Measuring Cup, which tends to be a liquid one. You put in the flour, shake it then eyeball it -- as generations of Americans and Canadians have now done.

Dry Measuring Cups come in sets of 1/4/, 1/3/, 1/2 and 1 cup; odd-size Dry Measuring Cups are 2/3 cup, 3/4 cup and 1 1/2 cups. They are made in plastic and metal.

Liquid Measuring Cups

Liquid Measuring Cups have a pour spout on them, which dry ones don't. Many will have enclosed handles so that the cup can be hung from hooks. Pyrex ones always used to have such a handle, but for some reason around 2000 or so they started putting out more cramped handles that are open at one end, and so they can't hang on a cup hook.

They are generally made of glass or plastic, with glass being more usual. Either will have the measurements marked off at the sides. Most glass ones are made of a heat-resistant glass such as Pyrex. Transparent plastic ones can cloud over with time, making it harder to see clearly how close the liquid you are measuring is matching up to the marks.

To accurately measure liquids, you have to raise a Measuring Cup to eye level or crouch down to its level on the counter. The top measurement line (1 cup, 2 cups, etc.) is always a bit down from the rim, so that when you need to measure the full amount, it won't spill over the edges.

Very large liquid Measuring Cups can double as mixing bowls.

Alternative Models

Adjustable Measuring Cup

Adjustable Measuring Cup
© Denzil Green

Some Measuring Cups are designed as "sliding bars." You move the handle, which in turn moves a dividing compartment in the cup portion, to decrease or increase the volume of the area available to hold ingredients.

Another novel design is that of a plastic cylinder fitting snugly around a sliding tube. Called a "Measure-All® Cup", a "Push Up Cup" or a "Wonder Cup" (yes, it is starting to sound like something else, isn't it?), you push the tube up or down inside the cylinder to the right measurement line you want, then fill. As you add ingredients, you raise the tube to line the measuring lines up with what you have already put in, and then measure the next ingredient in. In this way, it works a bit along the same principle of an adjustable electronic weigh scale. This design is used for solids, or semi-liquids like honey or mustard, but not liquids. They are particularly handy for ingredients like jam, peanut butter or butter that can be hard to get out of measuring cups: you just push the tube up, forcing the ingredient out of the top.

Accessibility

A few Measuring Cups, such as those designed by OXO, are now designed in such a way that looking on them from overhead will give an accurate measure. This means you don't have to crouch down to counter height.

These cups are actually divided in two by a slanting piece of plastic, with the half behind the plastic shut off, out of use, and on the slanted divider inside are the measurements, though measurements also on the outside. Some people feel, though, that the angles created inside the cup make it hard to scrape ingredients out.

Most measuring cups are designed for right-handed people.

Some measuring cups for those who are blind or have impaired vision have raised measuring lines on the insides of the cups, so you can feel where what you are measuring is at.

Displacement Method

This is a method for measuring solid, "water proof" ingredients such as shortening, lard or butter that is taught in home economics classes. It is considered more accurate than trying to pack it in, then scrape it out, but it is more work.

Using this method, if the measurement needed were 1/2 cup shortening and you have a 1 cup capacity Measuring Cup, you would fill the cup 1/2 full of cold water and add shortening. When the water reaches the 1 cup mark, you have added 1/2 cup of shortening. You pour off the water and the 1/2 cup shortening remains.

Alternatively, shortening may be placed on the kitchen table until it softens enough to pack it accurately in the cup, or, you can pack harder shortening or butter into the cup tablespoon by tablespoon to avoid leaving large air gaps.

UK Cups

America calls its measuring system "English", but the truth is, all Brits are mystified by references to "cups" of flour. Some North American food authorities have latched onto, in their conversion tables, something called a "UK Breakfast Cup", being 10 oz, half a British pint. This is bizarre to Brits, though. Disregard anything you see about British "breakfast cups" being used as a measurement. They just don't use a Breakfast Cup or any other cup as a measurement. Brits can't relate to "cups" at all as a measurement for solids.

Brits do, though, have measuring cups. But they tend to call them "measuring jugs", and they tend to be delineated in pints, not cups. Brits relate to "pints" (British pints of course, being 20 oz as opposed to 16oz in North America), and where North Americans might say "1 cup" (8 oz), Brits will say "1/2 pint" (10 oz), with the rest of the recipe being scaled accordingly, naturally. But, North Americans are losing an everyday understanding of what a pint is (as well as yards, for that matter.)

Consequently, North Americans and Brits are probably better off using metric as a common language.

A North American cup is 250 ml, a North American 1/2 pint is 275ml, a British 1/2 pint is 300 ml. If you're a North American working with a British recipe and you see 1/2 pint, measure 10 oz (300 ml.) If you're a Brit working with a North American recipe and you see 1 cup, measure 8 oz (250ml.)

You can buy sets of measuring cups now in stores such as Tesco's that are approaching the North American measurements for a cup. On them you see marked 1/4 cup (60 ml - Ed.: close enough), 1/3 cup (80 ml), 1/2 cup (125 ml), 1 cup (250ml.) Nigella Lawson sells measuring cups in the exact same dimensions, shaped like tea cups, with the level line marked inside beneath the rim. Some, though, have noted that their lack of spout makes them hard to pour liquids out of, and having the level line beneath the rim makes them hard to level off dry ingredients with.

Though such cups are not generally used in British cooking, they are used when dealing with all the recipes that come flooding across the pond from North America.

You can figure on a standard 1 cup measuring cup as being 250ml in the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Australia.

In the UK, many bread machines are shipped with cups for measuring flour, but there it is very hard otherwise to find such measuring cups for levelling off at the top, even though bread maker machine instructions there will tell you to do so.

Brits who want to cook a lot of North American recipes are probably best to grab somehow a set of North American measuring cups, because fortress North America isn't going to switch to cooking by weight anytime soon.

Measuring Cups in Other Countries

In Japan, a cup is 200ml.

Some Mexican recipes still are given in cups (called "Taza"), as in "¼ de Taza de Leche" (1/4 cup of milk.) Dry ingredients may even be given by Mexican recipes in cups.

Cups are also used for cooking in Australia. North American and Australian cups are the same size: 8 oz / 250 ml.

Metric Measuring Cups

Some metric enthusiasts (usually scientists in English-speaking countries), with the zeal of converts or former smokers, charge like Don Quixote at anyone who talks about "metric cups" or "metric teaspoons" saying that they don't exist; you'll never see such a measure in labs that use metric.

While it is true that current humanistic thinking holds that whatever can't be seen in a lab doesn't exist, the plain fact is that home cooks blow this thinking out of the water when it comes to metric Measuring Cups. They have them, and use them.

Even in metric countries, cooks at home often use cups for dry measure. Some Measuring Cups in Italy, for instance, have ml for liquid on one side, and g (grams) on the other for measuring the weight of flour based on its volume. Elsewhere in Europe, measuring cups often give ml measurements on one side, and various g equivalent marks for flour, rice, sugar, etc on the other side.

And two quotes from Australian government officials show that they certainly believe that a metric Measuring Cup exists:
  • "A ‘cup’ is a standard metric cup (250 mL.)" [1]
  • "The vast majority of data in this File comes from the original US Codebook files adjusted to metric measures, for example, US cup to metric cup. " [2]

_____________________________________________________
[1] Lester, Ian H. Australia's Food & Nutrition. Canberra, Australia: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Australian Government Publishing Service.
Appendix D, Page 312. 1994.

[2] Introduction to AUSTRALIAN FOOD AND NUTRIENT DATABASE ( AUSNUT 1999 )

Cooking Tips
If you have a scale, you can check to see how accurate your measuring cup is. On the scale, weigh out 1/2 pound of water. Pour into your Measuring Cup. The measuring cup should show exactly 1 cup / 8 oz.

Also called:
Verre gradué (French); Taza para media (Spanish); Recipiente graduado para cozinha (Portuguese) Top...