Cooking Converter
Cups to grams and back โ with real densities for flour, sugar, butter.
About this converter
Volume to volume (cups โ tablespoons โ ml) is pure arithmetic, and this converter does it exactly. Volume to weight is where recipes go wrong: a cup of flour weighs 120 g, a cup of sugar 200 g, a cup of honey 340 g โ so converting cups to grams honestly requires knowing the ingredient, and this tool carries standard densities for fifteen common ones.
Why cup measurements betray bakers
The dirty secret of volume baking: how you fill the cup changes what's in it. Flour scooped straight from the bag packs 15โ20% heavier than flour spooned in and levelled โ enough to turn a tender cake dense. The figures here are spoon-and-level, matching how American recipes are tested. It's also why serious baking recipes give grams: a scale removes the whole ambiguity, and any cup recipe converts through this tool once. (US cups are 236.6 ml; UK/Australian metric cups are 250 ml โ about 6% bigger, which matters in baking. General volume-and-weight conversions outside the kitchen live in the unit converter.)
Frequently asked questions
How many grams is a cup of flour?
120 g for all-purpose flour, spoon-and-level. Scooped straight from the bag it packs to 135-145 g โ the single most common reason baking recipes fail.
How many tablespoons in a cup?
16 tablespoons in a US cup; 3 teaspoons in a tablespoon; a US cup is 236.6 ml. The converter does all these directly.
Why does the ingredient matter for cups to grams?
Because a cup is a volume and grams are weight โ the link is density, which varies wildly: flour 120 g/cup, sugar 200, honey 340. Same cup, different contents.
Are US and UK cups the same?
No โ a US cup is 236.6 ml, a metric (UK/AU) cup is 250 ml, about 6% more. For cooking it rarely matters; for baking it can.