The Tablespoon Problem Almost No One Talks About
Australia is the only major market using a 20ml tablespoon rather than the 15ml standard used in the US, UK, and Canada — a one-third difference (20 ÷ 15 = 1.333). For leavening agents like baking powder, using an Australian tablespoon on a US recipe adds 33% too much leavening, which can cause a cake to rise unevenly, collapse, or taste bitter.
The fix: use three Australian teaspoons (3 × 5ml = 15ml) for precision ingredients, or convert to grams using our tablespoon calculator’s Australian toggle, which removes the ambiguity entirely.