Grams to Cups Converter

How to work it out yourself

1. 1.Pick the ingredient first. A cup of flour is 120 g and a cup of honey is 336 g, so there is no single answer to how many grams are in a cup.
2. 2.Say how the cup was filled. Spooning flour in and levelling it off is what recipe writers assume; scooping compresses it by roughly a third.
3. 3.Convert in either direction. Grams to cups is the same relationship read backwards.
4. 4.If the recipe gives grams, use grams. A scale removes this problem entirely, which is why professional recipes are written by weight.

The formula

1. Chart weight of one cupweights_a + weights_b
2. Grams in a cup as filledchart_g_per_cup * pack_factor
3. In gramsin_cups * g_per_cup + in_grams_direct
4. In cupsgrams / g_per_cup
5. Convertedto_volume_share == 0 ? grams / to_mass_share : cups / to_volume_share
6. In ouncesgrams / 28.349523125
7. In tablespoonscups * 16
8. Volume it occupiescups * 236.5882365

Source: King Arthur Baking — ingredient weight chart, NIST Handbook 44 — US customary volume measures

Questions people actually ask

How many grams are in a cup?

It depends entirely on what is in the cup, because a cup measures volume and grams measure mass. All-purpose flour is 120 g, granulated sugar 198 g, butter 226 g, honey 336 g. A page that answers this with one number has answered a different question.

Why do charts disagree about flour?

Because they measured differently. King Arthur lists 120 g for a spooned and levelled cup; USDA analytical samples come out nearer 125 g because laboratory flour has settled. Both are honest. The larger effect is not the chart but the hand: King Arthur weighed a cup scooped from the bag at up to 160 g, a third more than their own spooned figure.

Is a cup of water 227 or 237 grams?

The physical answer is 236.6 g, since a US cup is 236.588 ml and water is close to one gram per millilitre. The chart used here says 227 g because bakers round eight fluid ounces to eight ounces of weight, which is a convenience rather than a measurement. The gap is about four per cent, and it matters in a custard and not in a soup.

Does this work for any ingredient?

Only for the ones listed, because each needs its own measured weight. An ingredient not on the list has no honest conversion here, and guessing at one is how a recipe fails. Weigh it once on a scale and you will know it for good.

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