h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

this sounds delicious and within my skill range, but i don't really have a way of weighing all those things........can anybody tell me how to convert it into cups? I can figure out the milliliters to cups, but, well, i jut don't know how much flour is 375g. Silly Americans, i know.

Hi, The original recipe was in cups, as put forward by myself, but more standard measures were required - as cups can vary from tea to coffee or half pint cups and those ridiculously small ones where one's finger gets stuck in the handle bit.
So if I can help, here is a rough guide to the measure,

3 teacups of flour
1 teacup of butter
1 teacup of sugar
1 to 1.5 teacups of crushed walnuts
5 eggs (in or out of a tea cup)
2 tablespoons baking powder (like a slightly large soup spoon)
Half teacup of milk
Grated orange peel (one orange - save the inards for a Harvey Wallbanger - recipe avaialble if needed)

For the Syrup
2 teacups of sugar
1 teacup of water
1 lemon (or two, if having a Gin and Tonic instead of the wine whilst cooking - slice one for the cocktail)

Trust this helps - by the way, there are some excellent Greek wines, traditional and friendly to cook with - I even put some in the food from time to time. Enjoy, and have fun, this is essentially a very forgiving mixture, no need to be precise, if it looks OK, cook it.If it turns out different to what you had imagined, cook another.

Beaker

Whoooops - It's 'available' as well - sorry for spelling - cooking at the time, needed something to think about whilst I was writing

thank you! but, err...i don't really know what a teacup is. Is it like a cup of water? For me, an american cup is about the amount i can hold in my two cupped hands together....with liquids a cup is 8 ounces.....but i don't know really whether the amount is the same....metric system makes so much more sense, but it's not readily available here! Would half a teacup of butter be the same as one stick?

When I get home this evening, I will measure a tea cup in fluid ounces - are American liquid measures the same as English Imperial - don't think so but probably close enough for cooking, no need for science .

What on earth is a 'stick' of butter can you describe it, or estimate weight/area

Measured the cup, in fact I used 3 cups for good 'measure', a tea cup a large tea cup and a cup that I won for coming second in an egg and spoon race one of my early culinary experiences.

The measure of a standard British 'cup' for cooking approximates to 8 fl.ozs by volume (half a pint)- the weight differs dependent upon the item in the cup, some things are heavier by volume than others.

As with all standard measures, one can create one's own. As long as you use the same 'cup' for your measuring purpose each time, then the ratios required for the recipe will be OK.

Hope this helps - sleeves up now and get stuck in

Beaker

Hi Beaker!

Excellent piece, I can't wait to try the recipe. I hail from Canada where not only did we once have a different size gallons, pounds and ounces, etc. from the US but now we are metric.

A stick (I believe) is one quarter of a pound (US pound) and gets it's name from taking a pound of butter (a rectangular log) and cutting it into equal quarters lengthwise- making four *sticks*.

Keep up the great work!

clz