Cups to Grams Converter

How to convert cups to grams

A cup measures volume, and a gram measures weight. To connect the two you need the ingredient's density, which is why there is no single cups-to-grams number. A US cup is 236.6 mL whatever you put in it, but that space holds about 237 g of water, 120 g of flour and 336 g of honey. The calculator above stores a typical grams-per-cup value for each ingredient, so you pick the ingredient and it does the multiplication. Volume-only conversions, such as cups to tablespoons or milliliters, are on the cooking converter.

1. Choose the ingredient and find its grams per cup (for example, all-purpose flour = 120 g).
2. Write the cup amount as a decimal: ⅓ = 0.333, ½ = 0.5, ¾ = 0.75.
3. Multiply: 1½ cups of flour = 1.5 × 120 = 180 g.
4. Round to the nearest gram, or to 5 g for large amounts.

These weights assume a US cup filled the standard way: dry ingredients spooned in and leveled, brown sugar packed firmly, liquids read at eye level. For liquid volumes in fluid ounces, use the cups to fluid ounces converter; to turn the grams into ounces for a US scale, use the grams to ounces converter.

Grams in one cup, by ingredient

Why do recipes list 120 g, 125 g or 140 g for a cup of flour?

Each figure assumes a different way of filling the cup: 120 g is flour spooned in and leveled with a knife, about 125 g is the USDA nutrient database value, and 140 g or more is flour scooped straight from the bag and packed down, 15–20% above the spooned figure. The 120 g used here follows the spoon-and-level method that most US baking references recommend.

That spread is why bakers prefer scales. If a recipe was written for scooped flour and you spoon it, your dough will be wetter; the reverse gives dry, dense cakes. When a recipe gives both cups and grams, trust the grams. When it gives only cups, the values in this converter are a sound starting point.

Other ingredients that vary

• Brown sugar: 213 g per cup when packed, much less if loose. Recipes almost always mean packed.
• Powdered sugar: 113 g per cup unsifted; sifting adds air and lowers the weight of a cup.
• Cocoa powder: light and fluffy at 84 g per cup, and easy to compress, so spoon it gently.
• Oats and chips: irregular shapes leave air gaps, so 89 g of oats and 170 g of chips both fill one cup.

How does density turn a cup of liquid into grams?

Multiply the cup's 236.59 mL by the liquid's density in grams per milliliter. Water, at close to 1 g/mL, gives about 237 g; vegetable oil, at about 0.92 g/mL, gives only 218 g, which is also why oil floats on water.

Honey is the heavyweight: a cup of it weighs about 1.42 times as much as the same cup of water. For liquids, measuring by volume is perfectly accurate, so the conversion to grams only matters when a recipe or a nutrition count asks for weight. To move between milliliters and liters, use the mL to liters converter.

How do you convert a whole recipe from cups to grams?

Work ingredient by ingredient: convert the large amounts with their grams per cup, leave small spoon amounts as they are, and weigh everything into one bowl on a scale with a tare button.

1. Convert the big ingredients first. Flour, sugar, butter and liquids make up most of the weight, so they matter most.
2. Keep small amounts in spoons. Under 2 tablespoons, such as salt, baking powder, spices and vanilla, spoons are accurate enough and most home scales cannot weigh them reliably.
3. Use the tare button. Put the bowl on the scale, zero it, add the first ingredient, zero again and add the next. You can weigh a whole dough in one bowl.
4. Round sensibly. 180 g or 185 g of flour will bake the same; there is no need to chase single grams.
5. Write the grams on the recipe. Next time you can skip the cups entirely and get the same result every time.

Eggs are usually counted rather than measured, but if you need a weight, a US large egg is about 50 g without its shell.