Using Australian Recipes

I’m Libby, a home cook and recipe blogger from the Hunter Valley in Australia.

If you’ve landed here from the United States, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa or someplace else… G’day! Glad you’re here!

Here, I want to help you to easily use and love my recipes. Because you may come across some slight differences in our ingredient names, measurements and temperatures.

I have tried to incorporate the information into each recipe, but some older recipes may not contain this information. And it’s just good to have this as a reference in any case.

So, here are the things to keep in mind when reading and using my recipes:

1. Ingredient and food names

If I mention…	You might instead know it as…
plain flour	all purpose flour
SR flour (self-raising flour)	SR flour = Self-raising flour
icing sugar	confectioners or powdered sugar
bicarb soda	baking soda
glucose syrup	light corn syrup
treacle	molasses (though I’m told treacle is slightly sweeter)
stock cube	bouillon cube, granules or base
thickened cream	heavy cream
beef mince	ground beef
glace fruit	candied fruit
eggplant	aubergine
choko	chayote, vegetable pear, christophine or mango squash
chips	crisps or french fries
digestive biscuits	graham crackers
tomato sauce	ketchup
hard-boiled egg	hard-cooked egg
zucchini	courgette
capsicum	sweet or bell pepper
beetroot	beet
rockmelon	cantaloupe
celery stick	celery rib
prawns	shrimp
rocket	arugula
pancakes	flapjacks
coriander	cilantro
scones	biscuits
biscuits	cookies

(And Aussies who are using the above table in reverse, might wonder what “cool whip” is in recipes from the US. Find out how to make a substitute for cool whip here.)

2. Measurements

• 1 cup = 250ml (1 US cup = 237 ml)

• 1 teaspoon = 5ml

• 1 tablespoon = 20ml

• 1 tablespoon butter = 20 grams

• 1 stick of butter = 8 tablespoons of butter = 115 grams

Find a pounds to grams calculator here.

3. Oven temperatures: celsius to fahrenheit

	degrees celsius	degrees fahrenheit
very slow	120	250
slow	150	300
moderate	180	350
moderately hot	200	400
hot	220	425

4. Kitchen equipment

baking tray = baking sheet

frying pan = skillet

greaseproof paper = parchment paper

kettle = well, apparently in the US you don’t bother with electric kettles! So if I mention boiling water in a kettle, I guess you just do that in a pot on a stovetop?

Ready to get started with Aussie recipes?

If you’re keen to dig into some great Aussie recipes, things you may not have come across in your country, then I suggest heading over to check out my Aussie recipe collection.

And before you read my posts, you may also want to read through this guide to understanding Aussie slang.