Birthday Custard Sponge Metric Measurements

Asked by nadsmurf. Answered on 8th February 2015

Full question

Hi, I am in Australia and unfortunately have the US version of Nigella's books. So how many grams would a stick of butter be as this is specified in the Birthday Custard Sponge recipe? Thanks!

Our answer

A stick of butter is a US measurement and is the equivalent of a quarter of a pound. So it is 4 ounces or in metric terms 112.5g, though most people will round this to 110g. Butter is also sometimes measured in tablespoons and one tablespoon of butter is 15g. One cup of butter is 8 ounces, which is the same as 2 sticks or 16 tablespoons, and we usually round the metric weight down very slightly to 225g.

Nigella's Birthday Custard Sponge (from Feast) can be found on the Nigella website in both metric and US measurements. You can toggle between the two measurements using the switch button at the top of the ingredients list. However we would advise that you use either US or metric and do not use a mixture of the two. Also we understand that it may be possible to buy UK versions of Nigella's books in Australia on-line and the easiest way to see if it is the UK version is to check the name of the publisher; the UK versions are all published by Chatto & Windus.