Which units should I use in English recipes?
I would like to put a few recipes in English on a website. I would like to ask you which units should I choose so that they were comprehensible both for the British and Americans (and possibly also for Australians, Canadians...). Do you think metric units, ie. grams and millilitres, with American cups enclosed in brackets would be a good choice? I'm not quite sure about the American cups, though. It may be rather confusing as there are cups of different volume used here in Europe... But the same holds true for ounces; so if I put American ounces in brackets, someone could misteke it for imperial ounces....

Question

Which units should I use in English recipes?
I would like to put a few recipes in English on a website. I would like to ask you which units should I choose so that they were comprehensible both for the British and Americans (and possibly also for Australians, Canadians...). Do you think metric units, ie. grams and millilitres, with American cups  enclosed in brackets would be a good choice? I'm not quite sure about the American cups, though.  It may be rather confusing as there are cups of different volume used here in Europe... But the same holds true for ounces; so if I put American ounces in brackets, someone could misteke it for imperial ounces....

Answer

In my opinion, write the recipe using the measurements that you are familiar with. If you want to provide a second copy using different units, that would be generous of you, but you should not feel obligated.

Americans who are serious about cooking will go the extra step to convert the measurements.

Answer

Use metric measurements - as Damocha said, the serious buffs will make the effort to convert measurements.

On a side-note, I'm currentlty struggling with Turkish recipies because their units of measurement (eg. water-glass, tea-glass, soup bowl) are not yet familiar to me... and no-one here has been able to give me a (rough) metric equivalent yet.

Answers · 2

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