Cups to grams (and grams to cups) by ingredient
Convert US cups to grams — or grams back to cups — for common baking ingredients. A cup measures volume, so the weight depends on the ingredient: a cup of flour weighs about half as much as a cup of sugar.
Result
Amount in grams
Result
Amount in cups
How to use this tool
- Pick the direction: cups → grams for an American recipe when you bake with scales, or grams → cups when a recipe is in grams but you only have cup measures.
- Choose the ingredient.
- Enter the amount and read the converted figure.
Assumptions
- A US cup is about 237 mL (the legal nutrition-labelling cup is 240 mL). A UK or Australian metric cup is 250 mL, which holds roughly 5% more than these figures.
- Flour is spooned into the cup and levelled; scooping straight from the bag compacts it and can add 10–20% more weight.
- Brown sugar is firmly packed, as most American recipes specify.
Sources & reference data
Technical details: what the fields mean
- Ingredient
ingredient - Different ingredients pack very differently into a cup — flour is much lighter per cup than sugar, butter or honey.
- Amount
cups - Amount in US cups, as given in the recipe. Fractions convert as decimals: ¼ = 0.25, ⅓ ≈ 0.33, ½ = 0.5, ¾ = 0.75.
Methodology
Grams = cups × grams-per-cup for the chosen ingredient; grams → cups divides instead. Reference weights per US cup used here: flour 120g, sugar 200g, brown sugar (packed) 220g, butter 227g, uncooked white rice 185g, honey 340g. These are approximate baking references, not measured densities of your ingredient.
Worked example
2 cups of flour
Inputs: Ingredient: Flour, Amount: 2 cups
Result: 240.0g
1½ cups of butter (three US sticks)
Inputs: Ingredient: Butter, Amount: 1.5 cups
Result: 340.5g — one US stick is ½ cup, about 113.5g.
Grams → cups: a UK recipe needs 150g flour and you only have cups
Inputs: Ingredient: Flour, Amount: 150 g
Result: 1.25 cups — 1 cup plus ¼ cup, spooned and levelled.
Grams → cups: 100g sugar
Inputs: Ingredient: Sugar, Amount: 100 g
Result: 0.50 cups. The same 100g of flour would be 0.83 cups, which is why one generic cup figure doesn't work.
Practical guidance
- Weighing is more accurate and repeatable than cups, especially for flour, which packs very inconsistently by volume.
- For sticky ingredients like honey, lightly oil the cup — or skip the cup and weigh straight into the bowl using the gram figure.
- When converting a whole recipe, convert every ingredient with its own figure rather than a single grams-per-cup number.
Common mistakes
- Using the same grams-per-cup figure for every ingredient — flour, sugar and butter all pack very differently.
- Mixing a 250 mL metric cup with American recipe quantities, which adds about 5% to every cup measure.
- Scooping flour directly with the cup, which compacts it and adds weight.
FAQs
How many grams is a cup of flour?
About 120g for plain/all-purpose flour, spooned and levelled into a US cup. Scooped flour can weigh 140g or more.
How many cups is 240g of flour?
About 2 cups. Use the grams → cups direction and pick the ingredient, because the same weight of sugar is only 1.2 cups.
Is a UK cup the same as a US cup?
Not quite. Modern UK and Australian recipes use a 250 mL metric cup; American recipes use about 237 mL. The difference is small for one cup but adds up across a recipe.
Why isn't my ingredient listed?
Only ingredients with widely used reference weights are included. For anything else, weigh one level cup of it once and use that figure.
Last reviewed: 2026-09-25
Uses approximate reference weights — packing method, ingredient brand and moisture can shift the real weight by 10–15%. Not a substitute for weighing when precision matters.
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