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Weights and Measures

Every kitchen should have scales, with weights from a quarter of an ounce to ten pounds placed on the dresser, and the weights should be kept carefully in order. A set of tin measures with small spouts or lips, with their capacities distinctly marked upon them, from a gallon down to half a gill, will also be found very convenient. It is likewise well to have a set of wooden measures, from a bushel down to a quarter of a peck. Let it be remembered that of liquid measure- Two gills are half a pint. Two pints are one quart. Four quarts are one gallon.

Of dry measure- Half a gallon is a quarter of a peck. One gallon is half a peck. Two gallons are one peck. Four gallons are half a bushel. Eight gallons are one bushel. About twenty-five drops of any thin liquid will fill a common-sized tea-spoon. A common tumbler holds half a pint.

Four table-spoonfuls, or half a gill, will fill a common wine-glass. Four wine-glasses will fill a half-pint or common tumbler, or a large coffee-cup.

A quart black bottle holds in reality about a pint and a third. Ten eggs generally weigh one pound before they are broken. A tea-spoonful of salt or brown sugar is generally about one ounce. Dry ingredients such as flour, sugar, spices, and soda should be sifted before measuring, unless the recipe states to the contrary. Many carefully-written and many-times-tried recipes fail from the lack of this little precaution, for a table-spoonful of unsifted flour will measure over twice as much after that process. The table, dessert, and tea spoons used for measuring should be of the regulation sizes made in silver; the cup, the regulation kitchen cup, holding two gills or one-half of a pint. In measuring dry materials, a spoonful means that whatever is measured should round as much above the spoon as the spoon rounds underneath. When a level or a heaping spoonful is desired, it is so stated in the recipe. A spoonful of liquid is the spoon full to the brim; one-half of a spoonful should be measured lengthwise of the spoon, not across.

A cupful is an even cup, levelled off--not shaken down--and accurate portions of the cupful may be found by using the measuring-cups divided into thirds and fourths. These are of glass, which makes accuracy easy. 4 salt-spoonfuls . . equal 1 tea-spoonful. 4 tea-spoonfuls . . equal 1 table-spoonful 2 tea-spoonfuls . . equal 1 dessert-spoonful 2 dessert-spoonfuls . . equal 1 table-spoonful 8 table-spoonfuls of liquid . . equal 1 gill 6 table-spoonfuls of dry material . . equal 1 gill 2 gills . . equal 1 cupful 2 cupfuls or 4 gills . . equal 1 pint 4 cupfuls of liquid . . equal 1 quart 4 cupfuls of flour . . equal 1 quart 2 cupfuls of solid butter . . equal 1 pound 2 cupfuls of granulated sugar . . equal 1 pound 2 1/2 cupfuls of powdered sugar . . equal 1 pound 2 cupfuls of milk or water . . equal 1 pound 1 table-spoonful of butter . . equal 1 ounce 2 table-spoonfuls of flour . . equal 1 ounce 2 table-spoonfuls of coffee . . equal 1 ounce Butter the size of an egg means two table-spoonfuls or two ounces. A table-spoonful of melted butter is measured after melting. A table-spoonful of butter, melted, is measured before melting.