Volume is easy; weight is where ingredients matter
Converting inside one family is fixed arithmetic: a US cup is 16 tablespoons, 48 teaspoons, 8 fluid ounces or 236.588 milliliters, and an ounce is 28.35 grams wherever it appears. The trouble starts when a recipe crosses between volume and weight — an American recipe's cups against a European one's grams — because a cup measures space, and different ingredients fill that space with wildly different mass. A cup of flour weighs 120 grams; a cup of sugar, 198; a cup of honey, 340. Any converter that gives one answer for "a cup in grams" without asking what is in the cup is guessing. This one asks: pick the ingredient, and the density table below does the rest. Pure volume-to-volume and weight-to-weight conversions ignore the ingredient, correctly.
Ingredient weights per US cup
| Ingredient | Grams per cup | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Flour (all-purpose) | 120 g | Spooned into the cup and levelled |
| Sugar (granulated) | 198 g | Standard white sugar |
| Brown sugar (packed) | 213 g | Firmly packed, as recipes intend |
| Butter | 227 g | Two US sticks |
| Water | 236 g | Nearly identical to its 236.6 ml volume |
| Milk | 245 g | Slightly denser than water |
| Cocoa powder | 84 g | Light and airy — the extreme case |
| Honey | 340 g | The heaviest common cup in the kitchen |
| Rolled oats | 99 g | Under 100 g despite filling the cup |
| Rice (long-grain, raw) | 185 g | Uncooked; cooked rice differs |
These are the widely used King Arthur Baking reference weights, the de facto standard for converting American recipes. Technique still matters: flour spooned and levelled is 120 g a cup, while flour scooped straight from the bag with the measuring cup can pack in 140 g or more — a 15–20% swing, and the single most common cause of dense, dry home baking.
The conversions that rescue real cooking
- Half a cup = 8 tablespoons = 118 ml.
- A third of a cup = 5 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon ≈ 79 ml.
- A stick of butter = ½ cup = 8 tablespoons = 113 g — which is why butter wrappers print tablespoon marks.
- A UK recipe's 250 ml "cup" is a metric cup, about 6% larger than the US cup — small per cup, real across a cake.
- Oven-adjacent, but worth knowing: 350°F = 175°C, and our Temperature Converter handles the rest of the dial.
Why grams win for baking
Weighing is repeatable in a way scooping never is. Flour compacts, brown sugar clumps, cocoa floats — but 120 grams is 120 grams in every kitchen, every time, and a recipe written in grams can be halved or doubled with confidence (try halving "⅓ cup" by eye). A basic digital kitchen scale costs little, pays for itself in saved ingredients, and makes conversions like the ones on this page a formality: convert once with the table, weigh forever after.
Frequently asked questions
How many grams are in a cup of flour?
120 grams per US cup for all-purpose flour, using the standard King Arthur Baking weight (spooned and levelled). Other ingredients differ — a cup of granulated sugar is 198 g, butter is 227 g, cocoa powder is 84 g — which is why this converter asks which ingredient you mean.
How many tablespoons are in a cup?
16 tablespoons in a US cup, and 3 teaspoons in a tablespoon, so a cup is 48 teaspoons. A quarter cup is 4 tablespoons — the conversion behind most "no measuring cup, only spoons" rescues.
How many milliliters are in a cup?
236.588 ml in a US cup — usually rounded to 237 ml, or 240 ml in many modern recipes. Note that a metric cup used in Australia and some other countries is 250 ml, so check which cup a recipe means when precision matters.
Why do grams beat cups for baking?
Because a cup of flour can weigh anywhere from about 100 to 150 grams depending on how it was scooped, while 120 grams is 120 grams every time. Weight removes the biggest source of variation in home baking, which is why professional bakers and most of the world outside the US work in grams.
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