Becca Jane St Clair

I wanted to bake banana bread today, and I invited Tim’s sister over to “watch the American fail” at converting from US measurements to UK ones. Fortunately, I didn’t have to fail, as there are loads of websites out there willing to convert for you. We used a website offered by French at a Touch, and found it converted everything we needed to know, including temperature.

Here’s the original recipe:

Banana Bread
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup softened margarine
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
3 ripe mashed bananas
2 cups flour
2 eggs
Mix everything together. Pour into loaf pans and bake @ 350; large loaves take about 1 hr 15 min,
minis should be checked after 40 minutes.

And, converted to being used in the UK:

Banana Bread
227g sugar
113g softened margarine
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
3 ripe mashed bananas
454g flour
2 eggs
Mix everything together. Pour into loaf pans and bake @ 175; large loaves take about 1 hr 15 min,
minis should be checked after 40 minutes.

Our measurements were approximate – 113g was more like 125 (half of the stick), 227 was probably closer to 225, and 454 probably only 450. We figured those were probably the amounts intended anyway if it had been a UK recipe. We also used 4 bananas instead of three. The result? Three delicious loaves of banana bread.

Does this mean I’m ready to convert myself to cooking/baking in the UK? Perhaps, but if anyone reading this blog has my address here at Tim’s and wants to send me a US measuring cup or set of cups, I’d love you forever.