Tablespoons In 1 4 Cup

[Pinkie Mclucas]

I am trying to figure out how many batches of my icing recipe (5T powder) a 10oz tub of meringue powder will make so I know how much to buy.

Does anyone know how many tablespoons are in one ounce of powder?

Would that work for meringue powder? It's 10oz by weight, but some things are lighter than others and will take up more physical space. If it was fluid oz, it would work, but I don't know if the conversion will be the same for this stuff.

So I found nutrition information for Wilton's online - 1 8oz container is 36 teaspoons or 12 tablespoons.

However, I then found on Joann's site that one 16oz container of Wilton's makes 20 batches of icing (I think that recipe uses 3T, though, not 5).

It's unfortunate that meringue powder is so expensive - 1 10oz. tub of Ateco brand isn't going to last all that long and it's around $12. I wonder if there is a cheaper way to buy that brand in bulk as I don't care for the taste of the Wilton's powder at all.

I am actually just getting into cooking decorating. It was something I loved to do, but hated the idea of having to fill numerous pastry bags with different colors, using different tips. But I recently discovered the brilliant idea of using small bottles with couplers attached to them for piping and larger bottles with nozzles for flooding. I can't believe I'd never thought of using them before considering I have some of the larger bottles for sauces and things like that. But I now see that many cookie decorators actually use bottles instead and it was like a lightbulb went on! So now with the bottles, that makes using many colors much easier.

I used to just use egg whites, but then had yolks left over. I've also read about how some bakers use powdered egg whites (which I used to have, but tossed when I moved because I never used them), but the problem with those is that you have to hydrate them for awhile before using them in royal icing.

Cookie decorating is something I would love to get into as a small-scale internet business, but it'll take a lot of practice (and icing) to get to that point.

Definitely can't justify buying 10lbs of it, but I was considering the 20oz container. I might just go with the 10oz. to try it compared to using dried egg whites which are MUCH cheaper.

Thanks!

Here is another way to figure things. I know that different dry ingredients have different weights, but I think that possibly this might give you a ball park idea. There are 16Tablespoons to a cup, If you take a 10oz container and measure it into a cup container and you then measure the remaining amount in another cup possibly a 1/4c. you will know that you will have about 20 T. to a 10oz. container. I hope this makes sense.

It makes sense, but I don't have any meringue powder to measure I was just asking before placing an order for it so I know whether I should get the 10oz. or the 20oz. I guess I will just bite the bullet and order the 10oz and see how long it lasts. I don't make cookies all the time, but I hate running out and waiting for a new order to arrive. Because I am really not a fan of Wilton's powder, I have to special order Ateco brand online which takes time.

noms, one other way to do it would be if you had a set of scales. measure out by tablespoon fulls some baking powder to see how much comes to one ounce? I would think that Baking powder would be a fairly close substance to weight. Or use the conversion chart these others have sent you.

The baking powder thing might work, though from my experience, egg whites are very lightweight and baking powder is heavy because of the mineral component to it. But...I've since found a few sites that list the yield from a 10oz jar and unfortunately, it's only about 4-6 batches of icing. That's not very much considering a jar is $12. Ouch. I think powdered egg whites might have to suffice for me... or maybe I will mix them with powdered sugar and make my own "mix".

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I've seen the same thing on just about every bag of coffee I've bought recently and I am stumped too. I like my coffee very strong but that way it is just undrinkable. I usually go for a scant 1 1/2 per cup. A rounded coffee scoop is about right too, but of course with the fancy stuff you don't get one of those. Anyone know how much they hold?

It totally depends on how long you brew the coffee, too. If you use the 2 T/cup formula, you don't need to brew the coffee for very long. This extracts all the good stuff and very little of the not-so-good stuff, while still providing a nicely strong cup of coffee. The only way to get the same level of flavor with less coffee is to brew it longer (which can either be via extended steeping in a presspot or a finer grind in a drip system). But this results in the extraction of more not-so-good stuff, and ultimately an inferior cup.

I do think so much depends on brewing method. Made with this ratio in a manual drip cone like a Melitta or with a press pot and brewed for the optimal (and relatively short) amount of time.... it yields a very ful bodied and satsifying cup. When lesser grades of coffee are used, brewing temps are not exactly right or brewing times are longer (a common problem).... this ratio can yield a bitter cup.

The SCAA (Specialty Coffee Association of America) shows 7.5 to 8.0 grams of grounds per 6oz cup to be the sweet spot for ideal extraction of the solubles. Not sure who this compares to the weight of grounds that fits into an industry standard scoop but I think it's probably closer to two tablespoons than one.

I understand that the brewing method makes a difference. I can see using nearly this amount (about a cup and a half!) of grounds in a press pot or something of that sort. But for a standard Braun 10 cup drip coffee maker? Damn, that's a lot.

Brewing time and grind should not play into the formula. Slower than ideal brewing over extracts the coffee making it bitter. Faster under extracts, making it weak. The same with fineness of the grind. It relates to brewing method. But too fine a grind than recommended for a brewing method over extracts. Too course a grind under extracts.

All that said. When I was developing the Coffee By The Pound program for Dunkin Donuts we had two formulas. One for Kansas and neigboring states - one tbs per 6 oz cup and one for the east and west coasts (any anywhere else but Kansas) - two tbsp.

Well, hell, I'll give it a try and see what happens. I generally like my coffee pretty strong, but not bitter. Dunno if the Braun is up to it. The real test will be to see how my wife reacts. I suspect it'll be something along the lines of, "Mmm, this is pretty good . . . WTF? Where did all our coffee grounds go?"

Funny, my mom has always made coffee this standard way, but people that came over would always say how great the coffee was, etc. She doesn't use *fancy* coffee, I just think that many people make it much weaker, don't measure correctly, etc.

"Under the dusty almond trees, ... stalls were set up which sold banana liquor, rolls, blood puddings, chopped fried meat, meat pies, sausage, yucca breads, crullers, buns, corn breads, puff pastes, longanizas, tripes, coconut nougats, rum toddies, along with all sorts of trifles, gewgaws, trinkets, and knickknacks, and cockfights and lottery tickets."

A comment about coffee scoops: it used to be that a standard scoop was one tablespoon, and the wooden scoops you get with, for example, Bee House canisters are still that size. Most new scoops are two tablespoons. I think the change came about when people in general switched from percolators to drip machines (believe me, if you make perked coffee with 2 tbsp. per cup, you'll end up with mud).

I've found that for smaller amounts of water, you need the larger proportion of coffee. For a while when I was in between coffee makers, I used my old one-cup electric Melitta "travel" drip coffee maker. It brews directly into a mug that holds about 9 ounces, and to make decent coffee, I needed to use at least 3 tbsp per cup.

Now that I have a large coffe maker again, I find that for anything up to about half a pot, 2 tbsp per (6-oz) cup makes the best coffee. After that, I use proportionately less coffee. Thus, for a full pot (60 ounces) I probably use about 15 or 16 tbsp of coffee.

The bold type is the point I was trying to make and failed to express it accurately. Using a manual drip or press pot allows the brew time to be properly controlled - typically to about 3 1/2 to 4 minutes. Most consumer auto drip makers take much longer to brew a 10 or 12 cup pot - often as long as 8 -12 minutes - the brew ends up being bitter. One might make a full pot on an auto drip maker and assume that the type or amount of the coffee (two tbsp per 6 oz cup) was the problem when in fact it was the brewing time. There are a few 10-12 cup auto drip machines that brew quickly but among those, the majority brew at too cool a temp - another serious problem.