Cups to Grams Converter for Baking

Common baking ingredients: 1 US cup in grams

Why there is no single "cups to grams" number

A cup measures volume; a scale measures weight. The same cup holds 120 grams of all-purpose flour, 198 grams of granulated sugar and 227 grams of milk, because each ingredient packs into the space differently. A converter that turns "1 cup" into one fixed number of grams is quietly assuming water. That is why this converter asks for the ingredient first.

I use the King Arthur Baking ingredient weight chart as the reference because it is detailed, publicly available and tied to how their recipes are written. Other publishers use different flour weights per cup, because they measure flour differently. If a recipe states its own weight per cup, follow the recipe: its author tested with that number.

How the flour was measured matters more than the converter

The 120-gram figure assumes the flour is spooned into the cup and leveled off. Dipping the cup into the bag and scooping compresses the flour, and the cup can hold noticeably more. That difference is enough to turn a soft cookie into a dry one, and it is the main reason I recommend weighing flour whenever a scale is available.

If you have only cups, measure the same way every time and fluff the flour before spooning it. If you are converting your own family recipe to grams, weigh a cup measured your usual way once and use that number for that recipe. It reflects how the recipe has always been made in your kitchen.

Worked example: a cookie recipe

A recipe calls for 2¼ cups all-purpose flour, 1 cup packed brown sugar, ½ cup granulated sugar and 1 cup butter. Converted with the chart, that becomes 270 grams of flour, 213 grams of brown sugar, 99 grams of granulated sugar and 227 grams of butter, which is two US sticks.

Written in grams, the recipe is easier to scale. Doubling 270 grams of flour is simpler than doubling 2¼ cups and remembering how many quarter cups that makes. If you are changing the batch size, the recipe scaler can multiply the list first; convert to grams afterward.

Which ingredients are worth weighing

If you only want to weigh a few things, start with flour, then sugar and cocoa. These dry ingredients change the most with scooping habits, and they control structure, spread and sweetness. Liquids and butter are already predictable in cups or sticks. Mix-ins such as chocolate chips and nuts are forgiving: ten grams more or less changes the cookie a little, not the recipe. That order lets you get most of the benefit of a scale without weighing every ingredient on the list.

Butter, sticks and tablespoons

In the United States, butter is sold in sticks of half a cup, eight tablespoons or about 113 grams. The wrapper markings are a practical guide for cutting tablespoons. Outside the US, butter is sold in blocks of different sizes, so a recipe that says "1 stick" needs the gram conversion rather than a guess based on the local block.

Sticky and liquid ingredients

Honey, molasses and maple syrup are heavy for their volume: a cup of honey weighs more than a cup of water. They also cling to the measuring cup, so a volume measurement often delivers less than the recipe intended. Weighing them straight into the bowl on a tared scale avoids both problems.

For milk, water and cream, the difference between a cup and 227 grams is small enough that I would use whichever tool is in your hand. The scale matters most for flour, sugar and cocoa, where scooping habits change the result.

Limits of this converter

The converter covers common baking ingredients in their usual forms. It does not cover sifted flour, which weighs less per cup, chopped versus whole ingredients beyond those listed, or metric cups used in some other countries. Tablespoon and teaspoon results are calculated from the cup weight, so for very small amounts of leaveners or salt, follow the recipe's own measurement instead.