Recipe symbol help

I was all set to make a particular gingersnap cookie recipe. In reading through the instructions, I have come across a measurement I don't understand, although I probably should. It calls for 1/2 # sugar.

What does # translate to in the home kitchen?

Thanks!

The GP wrote:I was all set to make a particular gingersnap cookie recipe. In reading through the instructions, I have come across a measurement I don't understand, although I probably should. It calls for 1/2 # sugar.

What does # translate to in the home kitchen?

Thanks!

Pound?

Pound was my initial thought. However, every other measurement in the recipe is "cup", "teaspoon" or "tablespoon."

I would assume "pound."

I'd also vote for pounds, especially if your recipe had its origin in Great Britain. I did a search, and if you convert pounds of sugar to cups, each pound is 2 1/4 cups: 1 1/8 cup for your recipe. Gingersnaps have molasses, don't they? It strikes me that they don't contain a lot of sugar - though a casual search showed the typical amount in a standard recipe is between a cup and 1 1/4 cups, so that might be right.

I'd look up Gingersnaps online and try to find a recipe that matches your other ingredients just to be sure, as the above examples don't account for the volume of your recipe.

I have an old cake recipe from my grandmother which probably dates back to the thirties, and calls for things like a "slow oven" Always fun to figure that stuff out.

It is most definitely pounds and an increasingly more and more common usage of that symbol.

Best,
Michael

Thanks everyone. I'll assume it means pounds and see how it goes.

-Mary

It's definitely pounds. In fact, the key with that symbol on your phone is called the "pound key".

eatchicago wrote:It is most definitely pounds and an increasingly more and more common usage of that symbol.

Best,
Michael

It's not exactly a new usage (I'm not sure whether you're implying that or not), as the term "pound sign" is an Americanism, or so all the sources I can find say, and named such because it referred to pounds avoirdupois. It's been used in commerce for quite a long time, but I can't find a date on when it was first used. On the other side of the pond, it's usually called a "hash". In telephony, the name coined was "octothorpe," (one of my favorite words, and also used in design circles sometimes to refer to the symbol), but "pound sign" stuck.

Binko wrote:

eatchicago wrote:It is most definitely pounds and an increasingly more and more common usage of that symbol.

Best,
Michael

It's not exactly a new usage, as the term "pound sign" is an Americanism, or so all the sources I can find say. It's been used in commerce for quite a long time (since the origin of the term), but I can't find a date on when it was first used. On the other side of the pond, it's usually called a "hash". In telephony, the name coined was "octothorpe," (one of my favorite words, and also used in design circles sometimes to refer to the symbol), but "pound sign" stuck.

I didn't say it was new. Just increasingly more common in recipes. It has, as you said, been around this country for quite a while.