Baking Conversion Calculator
Convert between cups, grams and ounces for common baking ingredients with ingredient-specific density adjustments
Conversions
Conversions are weight-based and vary by ingredient density. For best results, use a kitchen scale.
Why Cup Measurements Don't Translate Cleanly
It is 7pm, you have found an American chocolate chip cookie recipe online, and it asks for 2 cups of flour and 1 cup of brown sugar. Your scales are out, your measuring jug shows ml, and the back of the flour bag is in grams. The honest answer is that 1 cup of plain flour weighs 120g, 1 cup of granulated sugar weighs 200g, 1 cup of butter weighs 227g, and 1 cup of cocoa powder weighs 86g. They are not the same weight because cup is a volume measurement and these ingredients have wildly different densities.
This calculator handles 9 common baking ingredients and converts between cups, tablespoons, teaspoons, ounces and grams using the actual density of each one. Pick flour and you get 120g per cup; pick honey and you get 340g per cup. Punch in the amount and unit you have, and every other unit appears underneath. No converting in your head, no scrolling forums to find out whether the recipe means UK or US tablespoons (they are different sizes; this tool uses US conventions because that is where most cup recipes come from).
Why Bakers Insist on Weighing
Spoon flour into a cup loosely and it weighs around 120g. Scoop it straight from the bag with the cup pressed in and you can hit 150g, which is 25% more flour than the recipe wants. That extra flour is why so many home-baked cakes come out dry and dense. Switching to a digital scale (£10 to £15 at any supermarket) removes this entire category of problem and is the single biggest upgrade most home bakers can make.
If you do not have scales handy, this tool gets you close. For everyday biscuit and brownie recipes, cup conversions work fine because the recipes are forgiving. For sourdough, macarons, choux pastry or anything where exact hydration matters, weigh it. The [grams to cups converter](/grams-to-cups) handles the reverse direction when you are working from a metric recipe and only have cup measures, which happens regularly with vintage British cookery books that switched between systems mid-decade.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many grams in a cup of flour?
One US cup of plain flour weighs around 120g, assuming you spoon the flour gently into the cup and level it off rather than packing it down. Bread flour is slightly heavier at around 130g per cup because the protein structure makes the grain pack more densely. Cake flour is lighter at around 114g per cup. The difference matters most in recipes that depend on a specific flour-to-liquid ratio.
Why is 1 cup of butter 227g not 240g?
Butter is denser than water (water at 1 cup is 240g) but the standard US baking measurement of 1 cup butter equals one half-pound block, which is 227g (or two sticks, 8oz). American recipes often write butter quantities in sticks for this reason. UK butter usually comes in 250g blocks, which is roughly 1 cup plus 1 tbsp.
Are UK and US tablespoons the same?
No. A US tablespoon is 14.8ml, a UK tablespoon is 17.7ml, and an Australian tablespoon is 20ml. The teaspoon is more consistent at 5ml across all three. Most online recipes use US conventions, and this calculator uses 15ml as a working tablespoon (the international metric standard) which is close enough for most baking. For accuracy with small quantities of leavening agents, weigh in grams instead.
What about ingredients not in the list?
For ingredients not listed (almond flour, ground oats, golden syrup, treacle), look up the density per cup and use the closest match in the dropdown as a working approximation. Almond flour is around 96g per cup so flour is reasonable. Golden syrup is around 320g per cup so honey works well. For absolute accuracy, weigh.
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