American Cookery help please

[Boggles]

I'm planning on trying some recipes that were on the Barefoot Contessa this week but i admit to be slightly confused by some of the ingredients so can anyone help with the following. Please and thank you!

1. Is Semi-Sweet chocolate basically the same as milk chocolate?

2. Butter seems to come in sticks but how big is a stick of butter?

3. She only ever seems to refer to flour as regular. Is that just plain flour and do you guys not use Self Raising flour? If you do, what is that called?

I think that is it to start with but I may have more daft questions later!

Cheers.

[Kiwi]

1. no it is different, milk chocolate is much sweeter and has more sugar. I personally would not use milk chocolate to cook with unless the recipe called for it specifically. If you can't find semi sweet use dark chocolate (you shouldnt have a problem finding it though)

2. a stick of butter is 120 grams (or there abouts it can vary by 5 grams either way)

3. there are two main types of flour, cake/pastry flour or bread flour. If you are making a dessert you should use cake flour, if you are making something like a cheese sauce it doesn't matter.

hope that helps

[Broomjockey]

not use Self Raising flour? If you do, what is that called?

I think sometimes, but usually not. Most recipies just include baking soda/powder instead. Allows for more adjustments.

[Boggles]

It does help.

Thanky you very much.

[Kiwi]

Self raising flour has salt and baking powder added. If it calls for plain flour use that, it should state self raising if thats what they want.... ahh baking

my kind of chemistry

science that I can eat!

[lupo pazzesco]

Kiwi already covered semi-sweet vs. milk chocolate, and I concur whole heartedly. If dark chocolate doesn't work, I've found using a 1:1 ratio of unsweetened:semi-sweet to be a good substitute, but that's just my experience.

Also, plain flour usually refers to all purpose flour. Self-rising is for breads and whatnot, and cake flour is for...well...cakes and pastries.

Re: the butter, 1 stick is generally 1/2 cup, which is (Yes, I did the math AND weighed a stick of butter on my digital food scale to verify) 114 grams.

I run into the opposite problems, finding recipes listed in grams when I need cups and tablespoons. I found This site to be a tremendous help in that endeavor.

Hope your recipes come out wonderful!

[ArcticChicken]

3. there are two main types of flour, cake/pastry flour or bread flour. If you are making a dessert you should use cake flour, if you are making something like a cheese sauce it doesn't matter.

Actually, there are three: Cake flour, which has less gluten, bread flour, which has more gluten, and all (or general) purpose flour, which is somewhere in the middle. I don't mess with the self rising stuff, but I have the other three.

[Evil Queen]

Actually, there are three: Cake flour, which has less gluten, bread flour, which has more gluten, and all (or general) purpose flour, which is somewhere in the middle. I don't mess with the self rising stuff, but I have the other three.

Thanks, you beat me to it!

Do NOT confuse butter with butter spread (the margarine in the tubs). If you are making a pastry item, be sure to use the stuff that comes in sticks only, as it has a higher content of fat. The Spread will melt far too fast and make your cookies and pastries flat.

[Kiwi]

okay okay please excuse me while I go throw myself off a cliff for forgetting

they are right there are THREE types of flour (although standard flour is techically a mix of the two )

[BookstoreEscapee]

semi-sweet chocolate = semisweet chocolate Equivalents: One cup of chips = 6 ounces; if melting the chocolate, chips and squares are interchangeable. Squares can be chopped up to make chips for cookies. Notes: Americans like this best for their cookies and brownies. It's available in bars, chunks, and chips. Mint-flavored semi-sweet chips are also available. Substitutes: bittersweet chocolate (very similar, but bittersweet chocolate usually has more chocolate liquor.) OR unsweetened chocolate (1 ounce = 1 ounce unsweetened chocolate + 1 tablespoon sugar) OR 1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa + 1 tablespoon sugar + 1 teaspoon unsalted butter or vegetable oil (may leave a powdery taste, but makes product moister and more flavorful.) OR 1 tablespoon peanut butter chips OR white chocolate (especially in chocolate chip cookies; more delicate flavor, burns more easily, contains more sugar.) OR milk chocolate

(from here; the part on semi-sweet is pretty far down)

[Librarybabe]

British food word definition, please?

Okay, what is castor sugar?
a) granulated
b) powdered
c) cocktail (extra fine granulated)

What, pray tell, is "streaky bacon"?
a) the sliced cured meat from pig's bellies (Hormel, Oscar Mayer)...the typical bacon served at breakfast time.
b) something completely different, which tastes vastly superior to that stuff, and I'm not going to tell you what it is!

What temperatures (C or f) do the various "gas marks" correspond to?

Why are all cookies, except Oreos, called "buiscuits"

Just wondering...

[Kiwi]

1. (Taken from) http://www.ochef.com/580.htm
Castor or caster sugar is the name of a very fine sugar in Britain, so named because the grains are small enough to fit though a sugar "caster" or sprinkler. It is sold as "superfine" sugar in the United States. If you don’t have any castor sugar on hand, you can make your own by grinding granulated sugar for a couple of minutes in a food processor (this also produces sugar dust, so let it settle for a few moments before opening the food processor). It is also called Berry Sugar in Canada.

2. Streaky bacon is regular strip bacon instead of canadian or back bacon. It has streaks of meat and streaks of fat. For Americans its your regular old bacon.

3. http://www.cookitsimply.com/guides/temperatures.php this site has a conversion chart. The Gas Mark is a temperature scale used on gas ovens and cookers in the United Kingdom, Ireland and some Commonwealth of Nations countries. (Taken from wiki)

4. (taken from wiki) In the United States and Canada, a cookie is a small, flat-baked treat, containing milk, flour, eggs, and sugar, etc. In most English-speaking countries outside North America, the most common word for this is biscuit; in many regions both terms are used, while in others the two words have different meanings—a cookie is a plain bun in Scotland,[1] while in the United States a biscuit is a kind of quick bread similar to a scone.

[Librarybabe]

British food word definition, please?

Thank you, Kiwi