When I first dug into the cookbooks and started looking at the recipes and not just the pictures I noticed some differences in vernacular I didn’t expect. I knew they used Celsius instead of Fahrenheit but the rest was new to me.
They list off several different temperature options for every recipe. With some internet searching I learned the following tidbits:
- Fan is referring to convection style ovens…you know, because they have a FAN circulating the air inside the oven unlike regular ovens.
- Gas Mark (with any number) is very literally referring to the notches on the gas stove oven dials…it’s a temperature setting used in Great Britain.
(The first few recipes I started making were from the GBBO website directly so I had to research and figure out what the heck they were talking about. I couldn’t find grids that had C/Fan/GasMark AND Fahrenheit so I had to use Google to convert C to F. It’s just SO HARD* being American reading a British cookbook)
3. Caster Sugar in the UK is the same as ‘superfine’ granulated sugar here. But that is NOT the same as the regular pound of sugar you’ve been buying your whole life. It’s also not ‘powdered’ (confectioners’) sugar. It’s in between in texture and hard to find in the states in grocery stores. You can get tiny containers intended for coffee stations and marketed as ‘quick dissolving’ sugar. Also the Brits refer to confectioners’ sugar as icing sugar in case you wondered.
(To date finding adequate caster sugar supplies remains the most annoying thing! Friends ordered a few pounds for me for the holidays but it was damaged in shipping. I found some pound bags at a rando grocery store but it is NOT actually superfine sugar so that was disappointing too.)
With a little more knowledge I was ready to start baking. That and a few shopping trips to HomeGoods. And Bed, Bath and Beyond. And Wegmans. And Giant. So, it took a little more prep work to get all the baking gadgets I’d need to get started than I’d anticipated. Or I’m not nearly as organized as I’d like to think. 😉
*This is sarcasm and said in a whiney tone similar to one you’d hear someone use when their ice cream falls onto the floor or when you hear old white dudes talk about gun control**.
Almost (right) Baking 