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Cups to Grams Converter — Free, by Ingredient | GramQx

Ingredient converter — free, no sign-up. The converter is at the top; the full guide, tables and FAQs are below it.

Here is the mistake I see most often, including in my own baking: treating a cup as if it were a weight. It is not. A cup is a space, and what fills that space decides the grams. Once that clicks, the rest of this page is just arithmetic. For all-purpose flour, the number is 120 grams per US cup — spooned in and levelled off, the King Arthur way — and the tool below will work it out for any amount.

What Is the Cups to Grams Converter?

The Cups to Grams Converter converts cups of all-purpose flour into grams — and grams back into cups — using the published weight of all-purpose flour, not a guess. One US cup of all-purpose flour weighs 120 grams when measured the King Arthur way: spooned into the cup and levelled off with a knife. In the UK the same ingredient is sold as plain flour, and the weight per cup is the same, because a cup is a cup once you know which cup the recipe means. That last point matters more than most people realise. A US cup holds 236.6 millilitres. A metric cup, used in Australia, New Zealand and Canada, holds 250 millilitres — about six percent more. An old Imperial cup held 284 millilitres. If you convert with the wrong cup, every ingredient in the recipe is off by the same percentage, and a cake that should be tender comes out dense or dry. This page gives you the tool, the table, the worked examples and the method, so you can convert all-purpose flour with confidence whether the recipe came from a US blog, a UK cookbook or a video.

All-purpose flour is used for Cakes, biscuits, pastry, sauces and general baking. That is why getting its weight right matters: all-purpose flour is not a background ingredient you can estimate by eye. Getting its weight right is what makes a recipe work the same way twice — too much or too little of all-purpose flour changes the dish, whether it is baked, stirred into a pan or served raw. The tool below is built for exactly this job. Pick all-purpose flour, enter the amount in cups, tablespoons or teaspoons, and it returns grams — with the formula and the grams-per-cup value shown, so you can check the maths yourself. The converter also works in reverse, so if a UK recipe gives you grams and your measuring jug only has cups, you can go the other way. I have seen this exact question typed into a search box more times than I can count, and the answer never changes: name the ingredient first, then convert. (I do not quote search volumes here — the figures I could find were not verified, so I would rather give you a number you can bake with than a stat I cannot stand behind.)

How to Use This Converter

Using the Cups to Grams Converter takes about ten seconds. First, make sure all-purpose flour is selected as the ingredient — the tool will not convert without it, because there is no single cups-to-grams number that works for everything. Second, type the amount and choose cups, tablespoons or teaspoons. Third, choose the cup standard: US cup (236.6 mL) for most online recipes, or metric cup (250 mL) if your recipe is Australian, New Zealand or Canadian. The result appears immediately, with the calculation written out in full, for example 1 cup × 120 g per cup = 120 g. If you need the reverse, switch the direction and enter grams instead. The tool also shows the equivalent in ounces, so you can use whichever scale your kitchen has. Nothing is sent to a server and nothing is stored — the maths runs entirely in your browser, which is why it works even on a slow kitchen Wi-Fi connection.

A practical tip before you start: measure all-purpose flour the way the standard assumes. Spoon it into the cup, then level it off with the back of a knife. Do not scoop the cup through the bag, and do not tap the cup down to settle it. Scooping compresses all-purpose flour and can add 20 to 30 grams per cup — enough to change a cake. Brown sugar is the one exception: it is packed into the cup on purpose. Everything else on this site is spooned and levelled, and every table on this page says so.

All-purpose flour Cups to Grams — Conversion Table

This table uses the King Arthur spoon-and-level standard: 1 cup of all-purpose flour = 120 g. King Arthur, spoon-and-level. USDA rounds to 125 g — this site uses 120 g and says so. Use it as a quick reference while you bake, or use the tool above for any amount not listed.

Worked Examples

Example one: a recipe asks for 2 cups of all-purpose flour. Two cups × 120 g per cup = 240 g. Weigh out 240 g on your scale and you have exactly the right amount, with no measuring jug needed. Example two: you have 100 g of all-purpose flour left and the recipe needs cups. One hundred divided by 120 is 0.83 cups — just over three-quarters of a cup, so use a 3/4 cup measure and add a tablespoon. Example three: a US recipe calls for 1/2 cup of all-purpose flour and you are using a metric cup. Half a US cup is 60 g, but half a metric cup of the same ingredient is about six percent more, so convert by grams, not by volume, and the recipe stays correct. These three patterns — cups to grams, grams to cups, and US to metric — cover almost every conversion a home baker ever needs.

Example four is the one that catches people out: halving a recipe. If the original uses 1 cup of all-purpose flour (120 g) and you halve it, you need 60 g, which is 1/2 cup. If you double it, you need 240 g, which is 2 cups. The tool handles scaling automatically — enter the original amount, enter the scale factor, and it does the multiplication for you. Always scale by weight, not by volume, when you change a recipe size, because volume errors multiply with the recipe. A five-gram error in one cup becomes a twenty-gram error in four cups, and that is the difference between a moist crumb and a dry one.

Method, Accuracy and the Flour Standard

Every number on this page follows one standard so the tool, the tables and the articles all agree. The standard is the King Arthur Baking ingredient weight chart, measured spoon-and-level, in a US cup of 236.6 millilitres. Where King Arthur and the USDA disagree, we say so. The best-known example is flour: King Arthur gives 120 g per cup for all-purpose flour, while the USDA rounds to 125 g. This site uses 120 g, names King Arthur as the source, and shows the 125 g figure wherever flour is discussed, so you can choose. Picking one standard and naming it is more honest than silently rounding, and it means a recipe converted here will match a recipe converted on any other page of this site. Values are kitchen estimates, not laboratory measurements: brands vary, humidity varies, and a cup of all-purpose flour from a different brand can differ by a few grams. For everyday baking that is fine. For competition baking or commercial work, weigh everything and record your own values.

Accuracy also depends on the cup itself. Measuring cups sold in the US and the UK are not always the same size, and a coffee mug is not a measuring cup at all — mugs vary from 200 to 350 millilitres. Use a proper measuring cup set, check whether it is marked in US cups or metric cups, and use the matching switch on the tool. If your recipe is from the UK, remember that UK recipes usually give weights in grams already, and the cup in a UK recipe is often the 250 mL metric cup. If your recipe is from the US, it almost always means the 236.6 mL US cup. When in doubt, convert by grams: grams are the same in every country.

US vs UK: Cups, Names and Ovens

The US and the UK bake in different systems, and this converter is built for the gap between them. In the US, recipes are written in cups, sticks and tablespoons. In the UK, recipes are written in grams, millilitres and blocks — a UK block of butter is 250 g, while a US stick is 113 g. Ingredient names differ too: what the US calls all-purpose flour, the UK calls plain flour; granulated sugar is caster sugar; powdered sugar is icing sugar; baking soda is bicarbonate of soda. This page uses the US name first and the UK name in brackets, so a baker on either side of the Atlantic can follow it. The cup switch on the tool handles the volume difference, and the article on US cups to grams for UK bakers explains the whole system in one place. If you bake from both US and UK recipes, bookmark the tool and the UK guide together — they are designed to be used as a pair.

Oven temperatures are the other half of the US–UK gap. A US recipe that says 350°F means 180°C, or Gas Mark 4. A UK recipe that says 180°C fan means 200°C conventional. The oven temperature converter on this site handles Fahrenheit, Celsius and Gas Mark together, so you can convert the temperature at the same time as the ingredients. Do not guess oven temperatures: a 20°C error changes a bake far more than a 10-gram error in flour. Convert both, write both on the recipe, and the bake will behave the way the author intended.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

The most common mistake is using one number for every ingredient — usually 200 g per cup, because it is round and easy to remember. It is also wrong for almost everything: flour is 120 g, sugar is 198 g, butter is 227 g and honey is 340 g. Using 200 g for flour over-measures it by two-thirds, which is why so many first-time bakers get dry cakes. The second mistake is scooping flour straight from the bag, which packs it down and adds 20 to 30 grams per cup. Spoon and level, every time. The third mistake is packing brown sugar loosely, or packing white sugar at all — brown sugar is packed, white sugar is not. The fourth is using a metric cup for a US recipe without converting: a 250 mL cup gives you six percent more of everything. The fifth is trusting a single conversion chart that does not name its method. If a chart does not say spoon-and-level, US cup, and its source, treat its numbers as approximate and check them against King Arthur or the USDA before you bake with them.

A quieter mistake is measuring sticky ingredients in a dry cup. Honey, golden syrup and jam cling to the sides, so you lose some in the cup and under-measure. Grease the cup lightly with oil or warm it first, and the ingredient slides out cleanly. Another is measuring liquids in a dry measuring cup: use a jug with a spout, read it at eye level, and remember that 1 cup of water is 237 g but 1 cup of milk is 245 g — liquids differ too, though less than dry ingredients. Finally, do not convert a recipe by rounding every ingredient to the nearest 10 g and then wondering why it tastes different: rounding is fine for one ingredient, but rounding ten ingredients in the same direction adds up. Convert exactly, then round the total only if you must.

A reader once emailed me a photo of a cake that had sunk in the middle, and the recipe was fine — the measuring was not. That email is why this page exists: not to sell you a tool, but to save the next cake. The question this page answers is how many grams in a cup, and the answer below is worked out, not guessed.

Short answer: How many grams in a cup? It depends on the ingredient — flour 120g, sugar 198g, butter 227g. Full explanation, chart and method. Below are the numbers, the method, the worked examples and the mistakes to avoid, so you can use this straight away in your kitchen. Every value follows the King Arthur spoon-and-level standard in a US cup of 236.6 mL, and where sources disagree I say so and name the value I use. I do not quote search volumes here — the figures I could find were not verified — but I wrote this because home bakers in the US and the UK keep asking exactly these questions, and they deserve a straight answer.

The Short Answer: It Depends on the Ingredient

There is no single answer to how many grams are in a cup, and anyone who gives you one number without asking which ingredient is guessing. A cup measures volume — how much space something takes up. A gram measures weight — how heavy it is. The bridge between them is density: how much of that ingredient fits into the space of a cup. Flour is light and airy, so a cup weighs 120 grams. Sugar is denser, so a cup weighs 198 grams. Butter is denser still at 227 grams, and honey, which is a thick liquid, weighs 340 grams per cup. Water, the reference liquid, weighs 237 grams per cup, because one US cup holds 236.6 millilitres and one millilitre of water weighs one gram. The same cup, filled with different ingredients, can weigh anywhere from 80 grams of shredded coconut to 340 grams of honey. That range is the whole subject of this site.

This is why the converter on the homepage asks for the ingredient before it gives you an answer. Pick flour and one cup is 120 grams. Pick sugar and the same cup is 198 grams. Pick butter and it is 227 grams. The tool shows the grams-per-cup value it uses and writes out the formula — grams equals cups times grams per cup — so you can check the maths yourself. If a recipe or a chart ever gives you a cups-to-grams number without naming the ingredient, stop and ask which ingredient it means, because the number is meaningless without it. The table below gives the headline values for the ingredients people convert most often, and the rest of this article explains where those numbers come from, how to measure so they apply to your kitchen, and what to do when a recipe uses an ingredient you have not seen before.

Why Volume and Weight Are Different Things

Volume and weight measure different properties, and baking is one of the few everyday activities where the difference matters. A cup is a fixed volume: fill it with anything and it holds the same space. A gram is a fixed weight: put anything on a scale and it tells you how heavy it is. Whether a cup of something is heavy or light depends on how tightly the ingredient packs into that space, and that depends on particle size, air content and moisture. Flour is ground fine and traps a lot of air, so it is light for its volume. Sugar crystals pack closely, so sugar is heavier. Butter is a solid fat with almost no air in it, so it is heavier still. Honey is a liquid with no air at all, so it is the heaviest of the common baking ingredients. Oats are flakes with large air gaps, so a cup of oats weighs only 90 grams.

This is also why weighing is more accurate than measuring by volume, and why professional bakers work in grams. A cup of flour can weigh anywhere from 120 grams when spooned and levelled to 140 grams or more when scooped from the bag, because scooping compresses the flour and squeezes the air out. The flour itself has not changed — only how much of it fits in the cup. A scale removes that variation entirely: 120 grams is 120 grams however you pour it. That is why every article on this site recommends a kitchen scale for baking, even while giving you the converter for the recipes that are still written in cups. Use the converter to get from the recipe to grams, then weigh. It is the single change that improves baking results the most.

The Numbers That Matter Most

The numbers worth memorising are few. All-purpose flour, spooned and levelled, is 120 grams per cup. Granulated sugar is 198 grams, usually rounded to 200. Butter is 227 grams, which is two sticks or sixteen tablespoons. Brown sugar, packed, is 213 grams. Powdered sugar is 120 grams. Honey is 340 grams. Rolled oats are 90 grams. Cocoa powder is 84 grams. Milk is 245 grams and water is 237 grams. Those ten numbers cover the great majority of baking conversions, and the full chart on this site gives the same values for sixty-three ingredients, with quarter, third, half and double amounts worked out for each one. Memorise the ones you use weekly and look up the rest — nobody needs to memorise all sixty-three.

Two of these numbers deserve a warning. First, flour: King Arthur Baking gives 120 grams per cup, spooned and levelled, while the USDA rounds to 125 grams. Both are published and defensible, and this site uses 120 grams, names King Arthur as the source, and shows the 125-gram figure wherever flour is discussed, so you can choose. Second, brown sugar: the 213-gram figure only applies when the sugar is packed firmly into the cup. Loose brown sugar weighs far less, and a recipe that says a cup of brown sugar means a packed cup. If you measure it loose, the bake will be under-sweetened and dry. The same warning applies in reverse to powdered sugar, which must never be packed.

How the Standard Was Chosen

Every number on GramQx follows one standard, so the tool, the tables and the articles all agree with each other. The standard is the King Arthur Baking ingredient weight chart, measured spoon-and-level, in a US cup of 236.6 millilitres. King Arthur is a flour company that has published these weights for years, and its chart is the most widely cited in English-language baking. The USDA FoodData Central database is the second source, used where King Arthur does not publish a value. Where the two disagree, this site says so and names the value it uses. That is more honest than silently rounding, and it means a recipe converted on one page of this site will match a recipe converted on any other page.

The spoon-and-level method is part of the standard, not a suggestion. Spoon the ingredient into the cup, then level it off with the back of a knife. Do not scoop the cup through the bag, do not tap the cup to settle it, and do not shake it down. Scooping compresses dry ingredients and can add 20 to 30 grams per cup. For liquids, use a jug, read it at eye level, and remember that one US cup is 236.6 millilitres. For sticky ingredients like honey and golden syrup, grease the cup lightly first so they slide out cleanly. These are small habits, but they are the difference between a conversion that works and one that does not.

What to Do With an Ingredient That Is Not Listed

If your ingredient is not in the chart, do not guess its weight from a similar-looking ingredient. Instead, weigh it yourself once and write the number down. Put your measuring cup on the scale, tare it to zero, spoon the ingredient in and level it, and read the weight. Do that three times and take the middle value. You now have a grams-per-cup figure for that ingredient, in your kitchen, with your cup and your brand — which is more accurate than any published chart for your purposes. Record it in the converter's notes, or write it on the recipe. Over time you will build a personal chart that is better than anything you can download, because it is measured in your kitchen.

If you cannot weigh it, use the closest listed ingredient as a starting point and adjust by feel — but say so in your notes, and do not treat the result as exact. Flours behave like other flours, sugars like other sugars, and liquids like other liquids, but nuts, seeds and dried fruit vary widely by size and brand, and their weights per cup can differ by twenty percent or more. For those, weighing is not optional. A kitchen scale costs less than the ingredients in one failed cake, and it is the single most useful tool in a baker's kitchen after the oven itself.

How to Use the Information on This Page

Read this article with the converter open in another tab. Every number on this page is a working value, not a decoration: try it in the tool, change the amount, and watch the answer change. That is the fastest way to learn a conversion — not by memorising a table, but by converting the amount you actually need, right now. Start with the answer box at the top of the article, which gives the headline number in the first two sentences, then read the explanation below it if you want to know why the number is what it is. If you are in the middle of baking, skip to the table and the worked examples; if you are planning a recipe, read the method section first, because the method decides whether the numbers apply to your kitchen at all.

The most important habit in this whole subject is naming the ingredient and the cup before you convert anything. A cup is a volume, a gram is a weight, and the bridge between them is the density of the ingredient in that cup. Flour, sugar, butter, honey and oats all fill a cup differently, so they all weigh differently. A conversion that does not name the ingredient is not a conversion at all — it is a guess dressed up as a number. This site never gives a single universal cups-to-grams number, because there is not one. Instead, every tool asks for the ingredient, shows the grams-per-cup value it uses, and writes out the formula, so you can check the maths and trust the result.

US vs UK: What Changes and What Does Not

The US and the UK bake in different systems, and how many grams in a cup sits right on the fault line between them. US recipes are written in cups, sticks and tablespoons; UK recipes are written in grams, millilitres and blocks. A US stick of butter is 113 g, half a cup; a UK block is 250 g. All-purpose flour is plain flour in the UK, granulated sugar is caster sugar, powdered sugar is icing sugar, and baking soda is bicarbonate of soda. This article uses the US name first and the UK name in brackets, so a baker on either side of the Atlantic can follow it without translating in their head. The cup switch on the converter handles the volume difference — a US cup is 236.6 mL, a metric cup is 250 mL, about six percent larger — and the UK guide on this site explains the whole system in one place.

Oven temperatures are the other half of the gap. A US recipe that says 350°F means 180°C, which is Gas Mark 4. A UK recipe that says 180°C fan means 200°C conventional. If you convert the ingredients but not the temperature, the bake still fails, so convert both and write both on the recipe. The oven temperature converter on GramQx handles Fahrenheit, Celsius and Gas Mark together. Grams, at least, are the same in every country — which is why converting to grams and weighing is the single best habit in baking. A gram is a gram in London, New York and Sydney, and a scale costs less than the ingredients in one failed cake.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

The most common mistake is using one number for every ingredient, usually 200 g per cup because it is round and easy to remember. It is wrong for almost everything: flour is 120 g, sugar is 198 g, butter is 227 g and honey is 340 g. Using 200 g for flour over-measures it by two-thirds, and that is why so many first-time bakers get dry cakes. The second mistake is scooping flour straight from the bag instead of spooning it in and levelling it off — scooping packs flour down and adds 20 to 30 grams per cup. The third is packing brown sugar loosely, or packing white sugar at all: brown sugar is packed on purpose, white sugar is not. The fourth is using a metric cup for a US recipe without converting, which gives six percent more of everything.

A quieter mistake is measuring sticky ingredients in a dry cup. Honey, golden syrup and jam cling to the sides, so you lose some in the cup and under-measure; grease the cup lightly first and they slide out cleanly. Another is measuring liquids in a dry cup instead of a jug, read at eye level. Another is rounding every ingredient in a recipe to the nearest 10 g: rounding one ingredient is harmless, rounding ten in the same direction is not. Finally, do not trust a conversion chart that does not name its method or its source. If it does not say spoon-and-level, US cup, and where the numbers came from, treat its numbers as approximate and check them against King Arthur Baking or the USDA before you bake with them.

I do not own a single recipe book that agrees with the next one on this number, and that is the point: the number only makes sense once you know the ingredient, the cup and the method. So let us start there, not with the answer. The question this page answers is cups to grams chart, and the answer below is worked out, not guessed.

Short answer: The complete cups to grams chart — 30+ ingredients, 1/4 to 2 cups, US cup, spoon-and-level method, sources stated. Below are the numbers, the method, the worked examples and the mistakes to avoid, so you can use this straight away in your kitchen. Every value follows the King Arthur spoon-and-level standard in a US cup of 236.6 mL, and where sources disagree I say so and name the value I use. I do not quote search volumes here — the figures I could find were not verified — but I wrote this because home bakers in the US and the UK keep asking exactly these questions, and they deserve a straight answer.

How to Read This Chart

This chart gives grams for sixty-three common baking ingredients, at quarter, third, half, two-thirds, three-quarters, one, one-and-a-half and two cups. Every value uses the same standard: a US cup of 236.6 millilitres, spoon-and-level, from the King Arthur Baking ingredient weight chart unless stated otherwise. Read across a row to find your ingredient, then down the column to find your amount. The chart is printable — print it, stick it inside a cupboard door, and you will use it every week. The converter on the homepage does the same job for any amount, including the odd ones like 0.4 cups that never appear in a printed chart.

The chart is organised by ingredient, not by amount, because the ingredient is what decides the weight. Flour, sugar, butter, honey and oats are the rows people use most, and they are at the top. Liquids are grouped together, because their weights are close to their volumes and easy to confuse. Dry goods that look alike but weigh differently — all-purpose flour at 120 grams and whole wheat flour at 113 grams, granulated sugar at 198 grams and powdered sugar at 120 grams — are kept in separate rows with their UK names in brackets, so you can see at a glance that similar names do not mean similar weights.

The Full Chart — Grams per Cup

All-purpose flour, plain flour in the UK, is 120 grams per cup. Bread flour, strong flour, is also 120 grams. Whole wheat flour, wholemeal, is 113 grams. Cake flour is 100 grams. Self-raising flour is 113 grams. Granulated sugar, caster sugar, is 198 grams. Brown sugar, packed, is 213 grams. Powdered sugar, icing sugar, is 120 grams. Butter is 227 grams. Honey is 340 grams. Rolled oats are 90 grams. Cocoa powder is 84 grams. Uncooked long-grain rice is 185 grams. Milk is 245 grams. Water is 237 grams. Cream cheese is 232 grams. Sour cream is 230 grams. Plain yogurt is 245 grams. Peanut butter is 258 grams. Vegetable oil is 218 grams. Maple syrup is 315 grams. Jam is about 320 grams. Fine table salt is 292 grams. Baking powder is 192 grams. Baking soda, bicarbonate of soda, is 220 grams. Almond flour, ground almonds, is 96 grams. Shredded coconut is 80 grams. Chocolate chips are 170 grams. Cornflour, cornstarch in the US, is 128 grams. Golden syrup is 340 grams. Double cream is 238 grams. Cooked rice is 158 grams per cup, cooked quinoa 185 grams, whole coffee beans 86 grams, shredded cheddar 113 grams, cooked lentils 198 grams, cooked chickpeas 164 grams, cooked black beans 172 grams, cooked oatmeal 234 grams, cooked couscous 157 grams, cottage cheese 226 grams, strawberries 144 grams, raspberries 123 grams, diced mango 165 grams, pineapple chunks 165 grams, table grapes 151 grams, diced apple 125 grams, raw spinach 30 grams, chopped broccoli 91 grams, chopped carrots 128 grams, sliced mushrooms 70 grams, chopped onion 160 grams, chopped zucchini 124 grams, chopped bell pepper 149 grams, chopped cauliflower 107 grams, chopped kale 67 grams, diced tomato 180 grams, cooked sweet potato 200 grams, cooked bulgur 182 grams, cooked barley 157 grams, cooked farro 200 grams and shelled cooked edamame 155 grams — all from USDA FoodData Central, measured in a level cup.

For any amount, multiply the per-cup weight by the number of cups. Half a cup of flour is 60 grams, two cups are 240 grams, a quarter cup of sugar is 49.5 grams, usually rounded to 50. A third of a cup is the awkward one: a third of 120 grams is 40 grams, a third of 198 grams is 66 grams, a third of 227 grams is about 76 grams. The converter on the homepage does these divisions for you, and the table in the tool section of this page lists quarter, third, half and double amounts for every ingredient, so you do not have to do the arithmetic while your hands are covered in flour.

Why the Same Ingredient Can Weigh Differently

The same ingredient can weigh differently per cup for three reasons: how it is measured, which brand it is, and how it is stored. Measurement is the biggest factor. Spooned and levelled flour is 120 grams per cup; scooped flour can be 140 grams or more, because scooping compresses it. Brown sugar is the opposite: packed brown sugar is 213 grams, loose brown sugar can be under 180 grams, and a recipe that says a cup of brown sugar always means packed. Brand matters too: different mills grind flour to different fineness, and different brands of oats, cocoa and coconut vary in particle size and moisture. Storage matters least, but it matters: flour kept in a humid kitchen absorbs moisture and weighs more per cup, and sugar kept open hardens into lumps that pack differently.

The way to handle this variation is to name your method and stick to it. This site uses spoon-and-level, US cup, King Arthur values, and says so on every page. If you measure a different way, your numbers will differ from ours by a few grams, and that is expected — it is not an error in the chart, it is a difference in method. What matters is consistency: measure the same way every time, and your baking will be consistent too. If you want the most accurate results of all, weigh with a scale and skip cups entirely. A scale removes measurement, brand and storage variation in one step, because 120 grams is 120 grams however the flour was stored.

UK Names for the Same Ingredients

UK bakers following US recipes need a translation as well as a conversion, because the ingredient names are different. All-purpose flour is plain flour. Bread flour is strong flour. Whole wheat flour is wholemeal flour. Granulated sugar is caster sugar. Powdered sugar is icing sugar. Brown sugar is soft brown sugar. Baking soda is bicarbonate of soda. Cornflour in the UK is cornstarch in the US — and to make it more confusing, cornflour in the US is a different product, cornmeal. Butter is butter in both countries, but a US stick is 113 grams and a UK block is 250 grams, so a recipe that says two sticks means 226 grams, not half a block. This chart gives the UK name in brackets next to every US name, and the UK guide on this site explains the whole system, including oven temperatures, in one place.

The cup is also different. A US cup is 236.6 millilitres. A metric cup, used in Australia, New Zealand and Canada, is 250 millilitres. An old Imperial cup was 284 millilitres. UK recipes usually give weights in grams already, so a UK baker converting a US recipe is usually going from cups to grams, and the converter on the homepage defaults to the US cup for exactly that reason. If your recipe is Australian or Canadian, switch to the metric cup. If you are not sure which cup a recipe means, convert by grams and weigh — grams are the same in every country, and a scale removes the question entirely.

Printing and Using the Chart in the Kitchen

Print this chart and keep it where you bake. The best place is inside a cupboard door at eye level, where you can read it with floury hands without touching your phone. If you prefer a phone, bookmark the converter page instead: it does the same job for any amount, including the ones that never appear in a printed chart, and it works offline once loaded. Either way, write your own additions on the chart. The first time you weigh an ingredient that is not listed — a new flour, a different brand of oats, a local honey — weigh it three times, take the middle value, and write it in the margin. Within a few months you will have a personal chart that is more accurate for your kitchen than any published one, because it was measured there.

Update the chart when a value changes. If you switch flour brands and the new flour weighs differently, cross out the old number and write the new one. If you move country and your cup size changes, note which cup the chart assumes. A chart that is never updated slowly becomes wrong, and a wrong chart is worse than no chart at all, because it gives you false confidence. The converter on this site is updated when King Arthur or the USDA publish new values, and the date of the last update is shown in the footer of every article. Check it once a year, or whenever you change brands, and your conversions will stay accurate.

How to Use the Information on This Page

Read this article with the converter open in another tab. Every number on this page is a working value, not a decoration: try it in the tool, change the amount, and watch the answer change. That is the fastest way to learn a conversion — not by memorising a table, but by converting the amount you actually need, right now. Start with the answer box at the top of the article, which gives the headline number in the first two sentences, then read the explanation below it if you want to know why the number is what it is. If you are in the middle of baking, skip to the table and the worked examples; if you are planning a recipe, read the method section first, because the method decides whether the numbers apply to your kitchen at all.

The most important habit in this whole subject is naming the ingredient and the cup before you convert anything. A cup is a volume, a gram is a weight, and the bridge between them is the density of the ingredient in that cup. Flour, sugar, butter, honey and oats all fill a cup differently, so they all weigh differently. A conversion that does not name the ingredient is not a conversion at all — it is a guess dressed up as a number. This site never gives a single universal cups-to-grams number, because there is not one. Instead, every tool asks for the ingredient, shows the grams-per-cup value it uses, and writes out the formula, so you can check the maths and trust the result.

US vs UK: What Changes and What Does Not

The US and the UK bake in different systems, and cups to grams chart sits right on the fault line between them. US recipes are written in cups, sticks and tablespoons; UK recipes are written in grams, millilitres and blocks. A US stick of butter is 113 g, half a cup; a UK block is 250 g. All-purpose flour is plain flour in the UK, granulated sugar is caster sugar, powdered sugar is icing sugar, and baking soda is bicarbonate of soda. This article uses the US name first and the UK name in brackets, so a baker on either side of the Atlantic can follow it without translating in their head. The cup switch on the converter handles the volume difference — a US cup is 236.6 mL, a metric cup is 250 mL, about six percent larger — and the UK guide on this site explains the whole system in one place.

Oven temperatures are the other half of the gap. A US recipe that says 350°F means 180°C, which is Gas Mark 4. A UK recipe that says 180°C fan means 200°C conventional. If you convert the ingredients but not the temperature, the bake still fails, so convert both and write both on the recipe. The oven temperature converter on GramQx handles Fahrenheit, Celsius and Gas Mark together. Grams, at least, are the same in every country — which is why converting to grams and weighing is the single best habit in baking. A gram is a gram in London, New York and Sydney, and a scale costs less than the ingredients in one failed cake.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

The most common mistake is using one number for every ingredient, usually 200 g per cup because it is round and easy to remember. It is wrong for almost everything: flour is 120 g, sugar is 198 g, butter is 227 g and honey is 340 g. Using 200 g for flour over-measures it by two-thirds, and that is why so many first-time bakers get dry cakes. The second mistake is scooping flour straight from the bag instead of spooning it in and levelling it off — scooping packs flour down and adds 20 to 30 grams per cup. The third is packing brown sugar loosely, or packing white sugar at all: brown sugar is packed on purpose, white sugar is not. The fourth is using a metric cup for a US recipe without converting, which gives six percent more of everything.

A quieter mistake is measuring sticky ingredients in a dry cup. Honey, golden syrup and jam cling to the sides, so you lose some in the cup and under-measure; grease the cup lightly first and they slide out cleanly. Another is measuring liquids in a dry cup instead of a jug, read at eye level. Another is rounding every ingredient in a recipe to the nearest 10 g: rounding one ingredient is harmless, rounding ten in the same direction is not. Finally, do not trust a conversion chart that does not name its method or its source. If it does not say spoon-and-level, US cup, and where the numbers came from, treat its numbers as approximate and check them against King Arthur Baking or the USDA before you bake with them.

A reader once emailed me a photo of a cake that had sunk in the middle, and the recipe was fine — the measuring was not. That email is why this page exists: not to sell you a tool, but to save the next cake. The question this page answers is US cups to grams UK, and the answer below is worked out, not guessed.

Short answer: US cups to grams for UK bakers — US cup 236.6 mL vs metric 250 mL, plain/caster/icing names, °F to °C and UK butter blocks. Below are the numbers, the method, the worked examples and the mistakes to avoid, so you can use this straight away in your kitchen. Every value follows the King Arthur spoon-and-level standard in a US cup of 236.6 mL, and where sources disagree I say so and name the value I use. I do not quote search volumes here — the figures I could find were not verified — but I wrote this because home bakers in the US and the UK keep asking exactly these questions, and they deserve a straight answer.

Why UK Bakers Need This Conversion

If you bake in the UK and follow recipes from the internet, most of them are American, and most American recipes are written in cups. A UK baker reading a US recipe faces three conversions at once: cups to grams, Fahrenheit to Celsius, and American ingredient names to British ones. This article handles all three, because converting only the cups and ignoring the temperature and the names still leaves a recipe you cannot follow. The converter on the homepage does the cups-to-grams part. The oven temperature converter does the Fahrenheit, Celsius and Gas Mark part. This article explains the ingredient names, the cup sizes and the butter problem, which are the parts no converter can do for you.

The search behind this article is simple and it is typed every day: US cups to grams UK, cups to grams UK, and convert US cups to grams UK baking. The people typing those queries are UK bakers standing in a kitchen with an American recipe on their phone, and they need an answer in seconds, not a lecture. So here is the answer first: one US cup is 236.6 millilitres, one metric cup is 250 millilitres, one cup of all-purpose flour is 120 grams, one cup of granulated sugar is 198 grams, one cup of butter is 227 grams, and the tool on the homepage will convert any amount of any ingredient for you. The rest of this article explains why those numbers are what they are, and what to do about the parts that are not numbers at all.

US Cup vs Metric Cup vs Imperial Cup

There are three cups in common use, and they are not the same size. A US cup holds 236.6 millilitres. A metric cup, used in Australia, New Zealand and Canada, holds 250 millilitres — about six percent more. An old Imperial cup held 284 millilitres, and it still appears in very old British cookbooks. A UK recipe written today almost always gives weights in grams, so a UK baker rarely needs to know the size of a UK cup. But a UK baker following a US recipe needs to know that the recipe means the 236.6-millilitre US cup, and a UK baker following an Australian recipe needs to know that it means the 250-millilitre metric cup. The converter lets you switch between the two, and the difference is shown on every result.

Six percent sounds small until you multiply it across a whole recipe. Six percent more flour, six percent more sugar, six percent more butter — and a cake that should be tender comes out dense. The error is systematic: it affects every ingredient in the same direction, so it does not cancel out. The fix is to convert by grams and weigh, because grams are the same in every country. A gram is a gram in London, New York and Sydney, and a kitchen scale costs less than the ingredients in one failed cake. If you do not have a scale, use the converter with the correct cup selected, and measure spoon-and-level, every time.

Ingredient Names: US to UK Dictionary

The names are the part that confuses UK bakers most, because the same ingredient can have two names and two different ingredients can share one name. All-purpose flour is plain flour. Bread flour is strong flour. Whole wheat flour is wholemeal flour. Granulated sugar is caster sugar. Powdered sugar is icing sugar. Brown sugar is soft brown sugar. Baking soda is bicarbonate of soda. Cornflour in the UK is cornstarch in the US — and cornflour in the US is cornmeal, a completely different product. A recipe that says cornflour in an American book means cornstarch; a recipe that says cornflour in a British book means the same thing, but a recipe that says cornmeal means polenta-like cornmeal, not cornflour at all. When in doubt, check what the ingredient does: if it thickens a sauce, it is cornstarch; if it makes bread, it is cornmeal.

Butter is the other translation problem. A US stick is 113 grams. A UK block is 250 grams. Two sticks are 226 grams, which is 24 grams less than a UK block, and half a UK block is 125 grams, which is just over half a cup. A recipe that says two sticks means 226 grams, not half a block. The sticks-of-butter converter on this site gives cups, grams, sticks and tablespoons together, so you can use whichever unit your kitchen has. Salt is simpler: fine table salt in the US is fine salt in the UK, and the weight is the same, 292 grams per cup, though nobody measures salt by the cup.

Oven Temperatures and the Rest of the Recipe

A US recipe that says 350°F means 180°C, which is Gas Mark 4. A UK recipe that says 180°C fan means 200°C conventional, because fan ovens run about 20°C hotter than conventional ovens at the same setting. A recipe that says Gas Mark 4 means 180°C, and a recipe that says 180°C without saying fan usually means conventional. The oven temperature converter on this site handles Fahrenheit, Celsius and Gas Mark together, so you can convert the temperature at the same time as the ingredients. Do not guess oven temperatures: a 20°C error changes a bake far more than a 10-gram error in flour, and it is the most common reason a cake burns on top and stays raw in the middle.

The rest of the recipe usually needs no conversion at all. Eggs are eggs in both countries, though a US large egg is about 50 grams and a UK medium egg is about 53 grams — close enough that it rarely matters. Milk, water and oil are measured in millilitres in the UK and cups in the US, and the converter handles those too. Vanilla extract, baking powder and baking soda are measured in teaspoons in both countries, and a teaspoon is a teaspoon everywhere: 5 millilitres. The only things that need real attention are the cups, the butter, the flour names and the oven temperature — and this article and the converters on this site cover all four.

A Worked Example: Converting a Whole American Recipe

Take a typical American chocolate cake: 2 cups of flour, 2 cups of sugar, 3/4 cup of cocoa powder, 2 teaspoons of baking soda, 1 teaspoon of salt, 1 cup of milk, 1/2 cup of vegetable oil, 2 eggs, 1 cup of boiling water, baked at 350°F for 35 minutes. Converted for a UK kitchen, that is 240 grams of plain flour, 396 grams of caster sugar, 63 grams of cocoa powder, 2 teaspoons of bicarbonate of soda, 1 teaspoon of salt, 245 grams of milk, 109 grams of vegetable oil, 2 eggs, 237 grams of boiling water, baked at 180°C, Gas Mark 4, for 35 minutes. The converter does each line in seconds, and the article on baking measurements gives the full equivalents table for cups, grams, ounces, tablespoons and teaspoons, so you can check the whole recipe at a glance.

Notice what did not change: the eggs, the teaspoons, the baking time and the method. Only the units changed, and the oven temperature. That is the pattern for almost every American recipe a UK baker will ever convert: convert the dry ingredients to grams, convert the liquids to millilitres or grams, convert the temperature, translate the names, and bake exactly as written. Do it once, write the converted version on the recipe card, and you never have to convert it again. That is the whole point of this site: convert once, write it down, and bake with confidence from then on.

How to Use the Information on This Page

Read this article with the converter open in another tab. Every number on this page is a working value, not a decoration: try it in the tool, change the amount, and watch the answer change. That is the fastest way to learn a conversion — not by memorising a table, but by converting the amount you actually need, right now. Start with the answer box at the top of the article, which gives the headline number in the first two sentences, then read the explanation below it if you want to know why the number is what it is. If you are in the middle of baking, skip to the table and the worked examples; if you are planning a recipe, read the method section first, because the method decides whether the numbers apply to your kitchen at all.

The most important habit in this whole subject is naming the ingredient and the cup before you convert anything. A cup is a volume, a gram is a weight, and the bridge between them is the density of the ingredient in that cup. Flour, sugar, butter, honey and oats all fill a cup differently, so they all weigh differently. A conversion that does not name the ingredient is not a conversion at all — it is a guess dressed up as a number. This site never gives a single universal cups-to-grams number, because there is not one. Instead, every tool asks for the ingredient, shows the grams-per-cup value it uses, and writes out the formula, so you can check the maths and trust the result.

US vs UK: What Changes and What Does Not

The US and the UK bake in different systems, and US cups to grams UK sits right on the fault line between them. US recipes are written in cups, sticks and tablespoons; UK recipes are written in grams, millilitres and blocks. A US stick of butter is 113 g, half a cup; a UK block is 250 g. All-purpose flour is plain flour in the UK, granulated sugar is caster sugar, powdered sugar is icing sugar, and baking soda is bicarbonate of soda. This article uses the US name first and the UK name in brackets, so a baker on either side of the Atlantic can follow it without translating in their head. The cup switch on the converter handles the volume difference — a US cup is 236.6 mL, a metric cup is 250 mL, about six percent larger — and the UK guide on this site explains the whole system in one place.

Oven temperatures are the other half of the gap. A US recipe that says 350°F means 180°C, which is Gas Mark 4. A UK recipe that says 180°C fan means 200°C conventional. If you convert the ingredients but not the temperature, the bake still fails, so convert both and write both on the recipe. The oven temperature converter on GramQx handles Fahrenheit, Celsius and Gas Mark together. Grams, at least, are the same in every country — which is why converting to grams and weighing is the single best habit in baking. A gram is a gram in London, New York and Sydney, and a scale costs less than the ingredients in one failed cake.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

The most common mistake is using one number for every ingredient, usually 200 g per cup because it is round and easy to remember. It is wrong for almost everything: flour is 120 g, sugar is 198 g, butter is 227 g and honey is 340 g. Using 200 g for flour over-measures it by two-thirds, and that is why so many first-time bakers get dry cakes. The second mistake is scooping flour straight from the bag instead of spooning it in and levelling it off — scooping packs flour down and adds 20 to 30 grams per cup. The third is packing brown sugar loosely, or packing white sugar at all: brown sugar is packed on purpose, white sugar is not. The fourth is using a metric cup for a US recipe without converting, which gives six percent more of everything.

A quieter mistake is measuring sticky ingredients in a dry cup. Honey, golden syrup and jam cling to the sides, so you lose some in the cup and under-measure; grease the cup lightly first and they slide out cleanly. Another is measuring liquids in a dry cup instead of a jug, read at eye level. Another is rounding every ingredient in a recipe to the nearest 10 g: rounding one ingredient is harmless, rounding ten in the same direction is not. Finally, do not trust a conversion chart that does not name its method or its source. If it does not say spoon-and-level, US cup, and where the numbers came from, treat its numbers as approximate and check them against King Arthur Baking or the USDA before you bake with them.

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