Foreign Food Items and Their U.S. Equivalents! On occasion a recipe mentions an ingredient that seems a bit unfamiliar. Here are a few foreign food names and their American equivalent to help you sort out what’s what.
Common Foreign Food Items and Their U.S. Equivalents
- Aubergine — Eggplant
- Baker’s Ammonia (Hartshorn)- Baking Powder
- Beetroot — Beet
- Bicarbonate of soda — Baking Soda
- Biscuit — cookie or cracker
- Caster Sugar — Superfine sugar
- Cornflour — Cornstarch
- Courgette — zucchini
- Crème fraîche – sour cream & heavy cream mixed 50/50
- Demerara — light brown sugar
- Digestive Biscuits — Graham crackers
- Double Cream — Heavy Cream
- Icing sugar — powdered sugar, confectioner’ s sugar
- Mangetout — snow/sugar peas
- Minced meat — Ground meat
- Muscovado — raw unrefined sugar
- Quark Cheese – Cottage Cheese
- Single Cream — Light cream
- Sultanas — White raisins
- Swede — Rutabaga
Baking Equivalents:
- 1 ounce Chocolate — 1 square
- 2/3 ounce Bakers yeast — 1 cake
- 3 teaspoons Dried yeast — 1 cake
UK Cream vs American Cream
Single Cream is 18% fat content- the closest equivalent we have in the the states is Half & Half which is 10.5-18% butterfat, depending on the brand you buy
Whipping Cream is 30% butterfat- although some brands in the states will label whipping cream and heavy cream as the same when they’re NOT. This has enough butterfat to thicken, but it doesn’t hold it’s shape for long, it often gets watery overnight.
Heavy Cream is 36-38% butterfat- it doubles in volume when whipped.
Double Cream is 48% butterfat – the equivalent of this in the states is “EXTRA Heavy” Cream.
The more fat you have in a cream, the more you can do with it. For example, to whip cream into a solid-state it needs to be at least 30% butterfat. In order to keep the cream from curdling when you add an acid, like lemon juice or tomato, the fat needs to be at least 30%.
If you’re making an acidic dish that calls for cream, don’t substitute half and half or regular milk unless you’ve also added butter to offset the lack of butterfat or it’ll curdle, thus ruining your dish.
