Cup to grams,
ingredient by ingredient.

Why ingredient density matters more than the recipe lets on

A cup of all-purpose flour can weigh as little as 113 grams (gently spooned and levelled) or as much as 150 grams (scooped straight from the bag). That's a 30 % range for a single ingredient measured the same nominal way. In savoury cooking the variation rarely matters — a tomato sauce doesn't care whether the flour-based roux uses 113 g or 150 g. In baking the same variation is the difference between a tender cake and a tough one, between a moist cookie and a dry one. Measuring by weight in grams eliminates the variation entirely.

Where the numbers on this page come from

The gram-per-cup figures are calibrated against two reference sources: King Arthur Baking's ingredient weight chart for baking ingredients (the most rigorously tested public chart of its kind) and the USDA FoodData Central database for pantry staples and fresh ingredients. Where the two sources disagree — which happens occasionally for dairy and produce — we prefer King Arthur for baking-relevant ingredients and USDA for everything else.

Why the same ingredient can weigh different amounts per cup

Density of a fluffy ingredient — flour, cocoa, confectioners' sugar — depends on how compactly the particles settle. The standard reference assumes “spoon and level”: fluff the ingredient in its container, spoon it gently into the measuring cup, level the top with a straight edge. Scooping directly with the cup compacts the ingredient and can add 20-30 % to the actual weight. For dense or liquid ingredients — sugar, butter, honey, water — the variation is much smaller because the particles or molecules pack more uniformly.

The three rules-of-thumb worth memorising

First: 1 cup of all-purpose flour ≈ 120 g (King Arthur standard). If a recipe works with this number, it's the right number. Second: 1 cup of granulated sugar = 200 g, near-exactly, regardless of method. Third: 1 stick of US butter = ½ cup = 8 tbsp = 113 g, marked on the wrapper. Almost every baking recipe in English assumes these three figures; once you can convert between them on sight, the rest of the chart is bonus.

For everything else, use the converter

The per-ingredient pages above cover the most-asked conversions in fixed quantities (¼ cup, ½ cup, 1 cup, 2 cups). For arbitrary inputs — 67 g of bread flour, 2½ tbsp of honey, 33 ml of olive oil — the full ingredient density converter handles any ingredient at any quantity, in either direction. The reference table behind it is the same one these pages are calibrated against.