Baking across borders

October 31, 2025 by
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As an avid baker and cookbook aficionado, I frequently purchase the UK version of baking books because the covers are always better than the US edition (something I have written about before). This has led to me learning – sometimes the hard way – about the differences between UK and US ingredients and measurements. Helen Goh recently explained many of those differences in a post from The Guardian that includes a recipe for strawberry iced finger buns.

Goh shares the horror she felt when she noticed the images of items baked from the US version of Sweet, which were “pale cakes with thick, dark exteriors” instead of lovely golden brown goodness. She quickly discovered that the baking temperatures had been inaccurately converted from Celsius to Fahrenheit because the US publisher did not take into account the lack of an oven fan in most US households. Since then, she has made sure to include recipe testers from the US so this type of error doesn’t happen again.

Napkin cakes with jam & white chocolate cream from Baking and the Meaning of Life by Helen Goh

In addition to sharing the tears that were shed over this problem, Goh explains differences between common ingredients in the US and UK, including flour, cream, and sugar. For example, caster sugar, which is the standard for British and Australian baking, is a rare commodity in the US, where it is sold as superfine sugar (at astronomical prices, I might add). Protein levels of flour differ, and the many types of cream with their varying fat levels can easily put a recipe out of whack if you do not choose wisely. Finding double cream in the US essentially requires travel to a large city and even then it can be a challenge to find a store that carries it. All of these are things to consider when using a recipe that was developed in the UK or Australia, especially for online recipes where the differences might not be explained (although Nigella Lawson does a great job at this).

Category: Cooking Tips

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6 Comments

  • Indio32  on  October 31, 2025

    Caster sugar here in the UK has a substantial markup over granulated.

    • Darcie  on  October 31, 2025

      I wondered about that. Here it is roughly twice as expensive as granulated (for the same brand). If you compare store brand granulated sugar to caster sugar (I can only find one brand of caster/superfine sugar – C&H), it’s closer to three times as expensive. I am only counting cane sugar here; beet sugar is even less expensive but there is no superfine beet sugar to be found.

  • KatieK1  on  October 31, 2025

    Thanks for posting this. I just printed out a copy of the article and put it in my copy of Sweet.

  • Peterkjsoe  on  November 1, 2025

    If you have a food processor you can easily turn granulated sugar into caster sugar. See e.g . https://www.thespruceeats.com/how-to-make-superfine-sugar-521027

  • Dionysiaca  on  November 2, 2025

    The opposite also applies. Bleached flour is illegal in Europe – it’s difficult to get even Gold Medal flour, and when you can you can look forward to paying £25 for a bag. Many other US ingredients are unobtainable here.

  • nadiam1000  on  November 8, 2025

    I typically buy the UK/AUS versions of books, especially baking – I am also a fan of the covers, and metric measures/weights. I am concerned about inaccurate conversions in the US versions so I prefer the original. I do have a UK market not far from me so I am able to find certain ingredients like flour which I appreciate.

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