Back in the day you might be busy cooking or baking one evening or Sunday afternoon only to discover, “Oh no, we are out of _____”. There was no running to the 24 hour Walmart, Seven Eleven store, or a Quick Mart at the corner gas station. See, in our not so distant past, workers were home with their families at night and on Sundays. Never fear, you had a few ways to remedy the situation outside of delaying or scraping the project.
One, run over to a neighbors and borrow “a cup of sugar”. It works as they borrowed a stick of butter from you two weeks ago. And, you actually know your neighbors by name.
Should your neighbor be out, the weather is bad or perhaps it is not a polite time of day to visit, a substitution may be available for the missing ingredient. Gathered below is a list of a few of the more popular substitutions.
Please send me other substitutions to add to our growing list. Avoiding the modern version of “running out to the store” is a good thing. Who wants to repeat a store visit you just made?! There is so much involved.
- Pack up the kids in the car
- Drive thru traffic
- Find a parking space
- Get a cart that is not stuck to others
- Find your item
- Buy items not on your list
- Stand in line for 10 – 15 minutes to check out
- Find where you parked the car
- Drive home
- Unpack car
Yikes! I need a nap after all that…..
| Ingredient Amount | Amount | Substitution |
| Baking Powder | 1 tsp | 1/4 tsp baking soda and 1/2 tsp cream of tartar |
| Buttermilk | 1 C | 1 C milk and one of the following 1 T lemon juice 1 T vinegar 1 C yogurt, plain (use enough milk to make 1 cup |
| Cake Flour | 1 C | One cup sifted all-purpose flour after removing 2 T |
| Chocolate – unsweetened | 1 oz. | 1 T butter and 3 T unsweetened cocoa |
| Cornstarch | 1 T | 2 t all-purpose flour |
| Corn Syrup | 2 C | 1 C granulated sugar |
| Cream, light | 1 C | 1 C milk and 1 1/2 T to not equal more than 1 C |
| Cream, whipping | 1 C | 1 C milk and 1/3 C butter to not equal more than 1 C |
| Herbs, fresh | 1 T | 1 tsp dried herbs |
| Honey | 1 C | 1 1/4 C granulated sugar |
| Lemon juice | 1 T | 1 T distilled white vinegar |
| Milk, skim | 1 C | 1/3 C nonfat dry milk and 3/4 C water |
| Milk, whole | 1 C | 1/2 C evaporated milk and 1/2 C water |
| Molasses | 1 C | 3/4 C granulated sugar |
| Mushrooms, fresh | 1 Lb. | 12 oz. canned mushrooms |
| Mustard, dry | 1 tsp | 1 T prepared mustard |
| Sour cream | 1 C | 3 T softened butter and yogurt to equal not more than 1 C |
| Sugar, brown | 1 C | 1 C granulated sugar |
| Sugar, granulated | 1 C | 1 3/4 cups confectioners sugar – except in baking |
| Tomato juice | 3 C | 1 1/2 C tomato sauce plus 1 1/2 cups water |
| Tomato sauce | 1 C | 3 oz. tomato past plus 1/2 C water |
| Yogurt | 1 C | 1 C buttermilk |
Life Is A Banquet...Don't Leave Hungry! 
Thanks for the great list. Having grown up on a farm, far from the grocery store, I definitely am very comfortable winging it and adapting a recipe when I don’t have an ingredient. More and more recipes call for fresh herbs, and I often use dried ones instead, but I’m always guessing at the amounts. It’s good to know the substitution ratio.
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