On Friday 20 February 2004 19:22, Chimpsarecute wrote: > I think you are making more out of this then there is. Isn't it obvious > that when recipes round off amounts to the nearest quarter cup, a lot of > the precision is lost anyway? Do you think that if a recipe, which is like > a formula were calculated, that the amounts would come out in nice rounded > numbers? They wouldn't.
No. Some (but not all) recipes require high precision. Cakes in particular turn out better if the ingredients are measured carefully. Time and experimentation have led to combinations of ingredients that work well despite the limitations of measurement by halves, thirds, and quarters. For example, if one liquid ingredient is rounded up, then another liquid may be rounded down (like milk and water.) In my opinion, this is an advantage of the metric system: You can specify whatever quantity you need without being restricted to specific arbitrary sizes like quarter cups.
