Converting cups to grams for baking: the table that actually works

Recipes in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia routinely call for cups. Recipes from anywhere else — and modern recipes from the same countries — call for grams. The conversion isn’t a single number; it depends entirely on the ingredient, and for compressible ingredients like flour it depends on how the cup was filled. This guide gives the accepted gram weight for the 30 most common baking ingredients, then explains how to handle the edge cases.

Flours and starches

Densities below assume the “spoon-and-level” method — spoon flour into the cup, then sweep level without tapping. The scoop-and-sweep method packs more flour and gives 15-25% higher gram weights.

Sugars and sweeteners

Fats

Liquids

For water and water-based liquids the conversion is almost flat — 1 ml ≈ 1 g. Volumetric measurement is fine here, which is why measuring cups for liquids have a spout and graduated markings rather than a flat rim. Recipes that spec liquids in fluid ounces introduce one more wrinkle: the US fl oz is 29.57 ml and the imperial fl oz is 28.41 ml, so an old British “8 oz of milk’ is about 4% more than the American one.

Solids and chunks

Why pro bakers stopped using cups

Three reasons:

1. Reproducibility.A cup of flour can vary 25% between cooks depending on technique. A gram is a gram. King Arthur Baking, Cook’s Illustrated, and most modern bread schools publish recipes in grams for this reason.
2. Scaling. Doubling 240 g of flour is obvious. Doubling ⅔ cup + 2 tablespoons is painful and error-prone.
3. Speed. Place the bowl on a scale, tare to zero, add the next ingredient to the target weight. Repeat. One bowl, no measuring cups to wash. Faster than the cup-by-cup workflow once you get the hang of it.

The cup size also matters

A US cup is 237 ml. A UK metric cup is 250 ml. An imperial UK cup (old recipes) is 284 ml. An Australian cup is 250 ml. A Japanese cup is 200 ml. The gram weights above assume US cups. For a UK or Australian recipe, multiply the gram weight by 1.055; for a Japanese recipe, multiply by 0.844.

See our US vs UK cup comparison for the full history of why these measurements diverged.

What to do with an old American recipe

If the recipe predates the 1960s, the cup is likely already a US customary cup (237 ml) but the ingredient densities may have shifted (modern flour is more refined and slightly denser; modern sugar is a finer grind). Don’t overthink it — use the modern gram weights from this table and adjust by feel after the first attempt.

For older British recipes that use ounces by weight (not volume), an ounce is 28.35 g. Sixteen ounces in a pound. Skip the cups entirely and use the original ounce measurements with a scale.

Pragmatic workflow

1. Buy a $20 kitchen scale that reads to 1 g.
2. For any cup-based recipe, look up the gram weight from this table or the source author’s preferred conversion.
3. Place the bowl on the scale, tare, add the ingredient to the target weight, repeat.
4. For liquids, use a measuring cup with a spout — the gram conversion is fine but the spout is cleaner.

Convert specific cup amounts directly in our cooking converter, which applies the density values above. For deeper background on why volumetric measurement is unreliable, see the cooking methodology page.

Sources: King Arthur Baking Company ingredient weight chart (2025), USDA FoodData Central, America’s Test Kitchen ingredient density reference.

Worked example: converting a 12-cookie chocolate chip recipe to grams

Standard American chocolate chip cookie recipe:

• 2¼ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
• ¾ cup granulated sugar
• ¾ cup packed brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 cups chocolate chips

Converting using the densities from the tables above:

• 2¼ cups flour × 120 g/cup = 270 g
• 1 cup butter × 227 g/cup = 227 g (= 2 sticks, ~½ lb)
• ¾ cup granulated sugar × 200 g/cup = 150 g
• ¾ cup brown sugar × 213 g/cup = 160 g (packed)
• 2 eggs × 57 g/large egg = 114 g
• 1 tsp vanilla × ~4 g/tsp = 4 g
• 1 tsp baking soda × ~6 g/tsp = 6 g
• 1 tsp salt × ~6 g/tsp = 6 g
• 2 cups chocolate chips × 175 g/cup = 350 g

Total dough mass: ~1,287 g. Divided into 12 cookies: 107 g per dough ball, which is a Levain-style oversized cookie. Reduce to 24 cookies × 54 g for standard size, or 36 cookies × 36 g for thin-and-crispy.

Workflow: place the mixing bowl on the scale, tare to zero, add flour to 270 g, tare, add the next ingredient, repeat. One bowl, one scale, no measuring cups to wash. Total measurement time for the full recipe: roughly 4 minutes vs ~8 minutes for cup-by-cup with sweeping. The time savings compound on recipes with many ingredients.

Common mistakes when converting from cups to grams

• Using a single density for “flour”. All-purpose, bread, cake, whole-wheat, and gluten-free flours have densities ranging from 90 to 130 g/cup — a 40%+ spread. Use the specific ingredient’s density, not a generic flour number.
• Confusing “packed” and “sifted”.1 cup of packed brown sugar weighs 213 g; 1 cup of loose brown sugar weighs ~145 g. 1 cup of sifted flour weighs 100 g; 1 cup spoon-and-levelled weighs 120 g; 1 cup scoop-and-swept weighs 145 g. The recipe’s adjective matters enormously.
• Weighing liquids by volume.Water and most aqueous liquids weigh ~1 g/ml, but oils weigh ~0.92 g/ml and honey weighs ~1.42 g/ml. A “1 cup of honey” recipe converted as 237 g (water density) instead of 340 g loses 30% of the sweetener.
• Converting US recipes with a UK or Australian cup. A US cup is 237 ml, UK/Australian is 250 ml. The 5.5% size difference compounds across a recipe. See our US vs UK cup comparison for the full divergence history.
• Treating 1 tablespoon as 15 g universally. A tablespoon of flour weighs ~8 g; of sugar ~12 g; of honey ~21 g; of butter ~14 g; of cocoa ~5 g. Use the ingredient’s specific density for any quantity large enough to matter (which in baking is everything above 1 teaspoon).

When the cup-to-gram conversion does NOT apply

• Bread baking with hydration percentages. Sourdough and artisan bread recipes work in baker’s percentages (flour = 100%, everything else as a % of flour weight) precisely because cup measurements can’t express the 65-85% hydration ratios these breads need. Use the baker’s percentage table directly; ignore any cup notation in the recipe. See our hydration glossary entry for the formal definition.
• Patisserie and confectionery. Macarons, tempered chocolate, sugar work, and Italian-meringue buttercream require gram-level precision (1-2 g variation changes the outcome). Recipes from professional sources never use cups; treat any cup- based version as a translation that has already lost precision.
• Whole-fruit and vegetable measures. “1 cup chopped onion” or “2 cups diced apple” depends entirely on chop size. The conversion exists in USDA tables (apples ~125 g/cup diced, onions ~160 g/cup chopped) but variance is 20%+ based on cut. For savoury cooking this is fine; for baking apple pie, weigh.
• Old-imperial recipes that pre-date the 1959 yard-and-pound agreement.Pre-1959 UK pounds and US pounds differed slightly, and 19th- century “cups” could mean teacup, breakfast cup, or coffee cup — see our historical recipes guide for the workflow.

For the underlying volume math, the NIST Metric Cooking Resources page covers the canonical US-customary-to-metric conversions, and the King Arthur Ingredient Weight Chartis the industry-reference table cross-checked against this article’s values.

Cup-size cross-reference for international recipes

A cup is not a universal unit. The five conventions you’ll encounter in English-language recipes:

Converting between cup definitions for the gram weight of a given ingredient: multiply by the ratio of cup volumes. US 1 cup of flour = 120 g; UK metric 1 cup of the same flour = 120 × (250/236.6) = 127 g; Japanese 1 cup = 120 × (200/236.6) = 101 g. The 25% spread between the smallest and largest convention is exactly why weighing replaces cups for any recipe that has to work across regions.

Practical rule when working with a recipe whose country of origin is unclear: if it uses a stick of butter (US convention), assume US cup. If it uses grams alongside cups (UK/Australian), assume the 250 ml metric cup. If it uses ounces by weight (UK pre-decimal or US older recipes), the cup size is a secondary concern — convert the ounce weights directly with 1 oz = 28.35 g.