Saluton folks!

While swapping recipes in Esperanto I came across the problem of translating the words "castor sugar" and "self-raising flour". Is there a way to translate these words and be internationally understood?

Good luck explaining castor sugar to an American. We call it "superfine" and not many people use it, so Esperantists won't be your only tricky audience!

Fortunately, I have the (old edition of the soon-to-be-updated) Wells dictionary. Wells calls it "pulvorsukero", which seems very descriptive and understandable to me.

Self-raising flour is another one of those common British ingredients that we seldom use in the US, though it can be found. I'd be inclined to call it "faruno kun fermento", which means "flour with leavening". Or, to make it a little more succinct, you could shorten that to "kunfermenta faruno".

This is a tricky situation, however. Ingredients vary widely worldwide, so even if your recipe is properly translated, people may be unable to find the things that your recipe calls for. If you wanted to give a person from another country a recipe that called for self-raising flour, I'd be inclined to "convert" that to a recipe with regular flour (you can calculate the amounts of baking powder and salt that you'd need to add to make it equivalent to self-raising).

I can read English perfectly well but I frequently have to make substitutions for ingredients from British recipes. The sticky toffee pudding I made yesterday, for example, used regular molasses rather than black treacle, which is hard to find here. I have never seen it in a store, actually, but I have seen pictures online I did have some golden syrup on hand, which is definitely not sold at every supermarket, but is available if you keep your eyes open.

Even flour is not necessarily what you think. Some countries grind it more coursely or more finely, so that a recipe might fail if you use it with a courser or finer grind than the recipe was written for.

In Italy, I had trouble finding baking powder without added artificial vanilla flavor. The only place where I ever found it as I am used to seeing it (in a can with no added flavors) was in a Bangladeshi market!

Yes, I know I am overly verbose as usual. So sue me. I have been having a lovely time baking during this weekend's Snowmageddon event. Sticky toffee pudding yesterday, Meyer lemon scones today! Yum.

ljbookworm:translating the words "castor sugar" and "self-raising flour".

Butler has pulvora sukero, similar to Wells.

Self-raising flour is flour with an added ingredient, typically sodium bicarbonate, which is sodo. So one possibility is sodofaruno.

I thought self raising flour usually had baking powder (which has sodium bicarbonate in it, but also other ingredients) and usually some salt as well. So it is a bit more complex than simple flour with baking soda.

Baking powder indeed has acidic ingredients as well as the alkaline sodium bicarbonate. Identifying a complex additive by its main ingredient also occurs in soda bread, where buttermilk is also a component.
Another way might be memleva faruno - I would omit the participial -nta myself.

I like to look for inspiration to other foreign languages when I am trying to decide on the right Esperanto word.

Does anyone know what self-raising flour is called in any languages other than English?

erinja:I like to look for inspiration to other foreign languages when I am trying to decide on the right Esperanto word.

Does anyone know what self-raising flour is called in any languages other than English?

I assume you mean the stuff you add to make the dough fluffily? In German it seems to be "Backpulver". There are listed some translations at Wiktionary and Wiktinary (en)

What you call backpulver is called baking powder in English. What we are talking about is something else. "Self raising flour" (or sometimes "self-rising flour") is actually flour that already has a small amount of baking powder added. The purpose of it is to allow you to skip some steps when cooking, because the flour itself already has some leavening ingredients (baking powder and salt, I believe)

Hhm. Then I have no idea. From the first look at "self-raising flour" that did sound to me like either some chemical stuff or something with yeast inside. Confirming what you mentioned, like I understand this "self-raising flour" is only a mix from normal (all-purpose) baking powder and some salt you can prepare yourself.

"...What is Self-rising flour?

Self-rising flour is all-purpose flour with added salt and leavening (baking powder).

You will notice that recipes that call for self-rising flour do not call for baking powder.

Make your own self-rising flour

For 1 cup self-rising flour use:

* 1 cup all-purpose flour
* 1 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
* a pinch of salt.
..."

Here is a What to do with Self-rising flour? disscussion. Hopefully that give you a glue to find a esperanto translation. I can't remember that you need "self-rising flour" for any special german food. Okej, but I'm not a specialist for that. Maybe they do something inside dark bread.

Straight from a packet of English self-raising flower:

Ingredients: Wheat Flour, Raising Agents: Monocalcium Phosphate, Sodium Bicarbonate.

This is identical in another rival brand.

( Erinja, I must ask you to be less enthusiastic describing your baking. I read it sat at work, almost visibly drooling, with only cold sandwiches for company. I suspect that this could be construed as a mild form of torture under international law )