Baking is really a wonderful hobby. It requires precision, patience, creativity and an eye for detail. And the rewards are delicious! Sometimes however, you may find yourself without certain ingredients or you might not be able to find what's called for in the recipe, or sometimes even both. In these instances it's helpful to know how to convert recipes and substitutions that work generally in any baking recipe.
In this book I'll provide you with some easy conversion tips for a couple of different baking needs: conversions between cups and grams; converting sugar measurements from brown sugar to white sugar; substitutions of liquid with water or milk; conversions between white granulated sugar and brown/raw/demerara sugars.
To start, the most basic baking conversion is simple. If you want to know how much sugar to use in any recipe that calls for sugar, just multiply the cups of sugar by 4 or 2.5 as appropriate for the type of sugar.
Following that basic principle, if you want to know how full/hefty a cup of flour or any other dry ingredient should be, just multiply by 4 as well. But what if your recipe calls for whole eggs and you don't have an egg measuring cup handy? The answer is that it's still best to use a measuring cup and scoop rather than scooping out a heftier amount with your two hands and then leveling it off on the spoon. To do so relies on a very shaky measuring technique which is not accurate. The weight of the egg will vary by how big it is, the size of your hand, and how much force you use to pack it down. That said, if you don't have an egg measuring cup handy, then cracking the egg in half and adding about 1 tbsp of white granulated sugar will give you some idea as to what that amount should be (it's just an approximation).
Converting between cups and grams can be tricky for those new to baking. For this reason I prefer grams when possible. However, cups are still very useful to know for those cooks who are not comfortable with grams. But if you want to convert cups to grams, there's a simple rule of thumb that works. Just add about 1/3 cup to 1/4 cup more flour or whatever ingredient you're converting for each cup that's called for in the recipe.
For instance, if your recipe calls for 1 3/8 cups of flour you'll need about 1 lb. (454 g) of flour. If it calls for 1 2/3 cups then you'll need about 1 lb. and 4 oz (454 g). Do make sure though that your measuring cups are level and not heaping. Otherwise you'll have to hope for an accurate conversion as described above.
Unfortunately, there is no simple conversion between cups and ounces so you'll need to check your recipe carefully. If it's not in grams or grams + 5% then it's likely in cups. If it's not in cups then you will have to estimate the amount of flour by measuring tablespoons and then converting to grams either using the green scale or by adding a little flour to the weight of the cup. This is a technique I use regularly when I'm working with breads. You can see an example of this technique in action here.
