How to Convert Recipes from Cups to Grams (Free Calculator)

If you have ever baked an American recipe in a European kitchen, you
already know the problem. "One cup of flour" is not a weight. It is a
volume, and volume of flour depends on how you scoop it. Two cooks
following the same recipe can end up with twenty percent different
amounts of flour. In baking, that is the difference between a cake
and a brick.

Converting to grams fixes this. Here is how to do it, plus tables for
the ingredients that matter most.

## Why grams beat cups

A kitchen scale costs fifteen dollars and eliminates three problems:

- **Consistency.** One hundred twenty grams of flour is always one
hundred twenty grams, no matter who scoops.
- **Speed.** You tare the bowl, pour until the number is right, done.
No rinsing measuring cups.
- **Scaling.** Doubling a recipe in grams is multiplication. Doubling
in cups and teaspoons is a puzzle.

Cooks in the US still use cups because that is what cookbooks print.
The rest of the world moved to grams decades ago. In 2026 there is no
reason a home baker cannot use both.

## The conversions that matter

The numbers below are the ones most home bakers need. They are
approximate — brand and humidity shift flour weight by a few percent.

### Flour

- All-purpose flour: 1 cup = 120 g
- Bread flour: 1 cup = 130 g
- Cake flour: 1 cup = 115 g
- Whole wheat flour: 1 cup = 120 g
- Almond flour: 1 cup = 96 g

Flour is the ingredient where cup measurement hurts most. Scoop
directly from the bag and you can pack in 150 g. Spoon-and-level gives
closer to 120 g. If you only convert one ingredient by weight, make
it flour.

### Sugar

- Granulated white sugar: 1 cup = 200 g
- Brown sugar, packed: 1 cup = 220 g
- Powdered sugar, unsifted: 1 cup = 125 g
- Honey: 1 cup = 340 g
- Maple syrup: 1 cup = 320 g

Sugar is forgiving in volume because the crystals pack consistently.
Brown sugar is the exception — "packed" and "loose" can be a twenty
percent swing.

### Butter and fats

- Butter: 1 cup = 227 g (that is 2 sticks in the US)
- Butter: 1 tablespoon = 14 g
- Olive oil: 1 cup = 216 g
- Vegetable oil: 1 cup = 218 g
- Coconut oil, solid: 1 cup = 205 g

Butter wrappers in the US print tablespoon marks. Europeans, ignore
the marks and weigh from the block.

### Dairy and liquids

- Milk: 1 cup = 240 g (water and most dairy are close to 1 g/mL)
- Heavy cream: 1 cup = 238 g
- Yogurt: 1 cup = 245 g
- Water: 1 cup = 237 g

For most liquids, "1 cup = 240 mL = 240 g" is close enough.

### Common add-ins

- Rolled oats: 1 cup = 90 g
- Chocolate chips: 1 cup = 175 g
- Cocoa powder: 1 cup = 85 g
- Chopped nuts: 1 cup = 115 g (varies by nut)
- Raisins: 1 cup = 150 g

## How to convert a whole recipe at once

Converting one ingredient at a time is slow. For a whole recipe, two
faster options:

1. **Import the recipe and let the app do it.** If you save the recipe
to /import, the ingredient parser captures the quantity and the
unit as structured data. Flip the display to metric and every
ingredient converts at once, including the mixed ones ("1 1/2 cups
plus 2 tablespoons"). You keep the original and the converted
version side by side.
2. **Rewrite once, cook forever.** For recipes you will cook often,
spend five minutes rewriting the ingredient list in grams and save
it to your library. Every future cook is faster.

## Measurements that should stay as volume

Grams do not fix everything. Some ingredients are genuinely better in
volume or count:

- Spices, measured in teaspoons — the weight is too small for most
kitchen scales to resolve.
- Eggs, counted by number and by "large" size.
- Vanilla extract, drops of lemon, pinches of salt.

A realistic kitchen uses grams for bulk ingredients and teaspoons /
tablespoons for seasonings. That is the combination most European
cookbooks have used for decades.

If you cook from a lot of US recipes, converting the whole library
once is worth a Saturday afternoon. After that, the scale does the
work and your cakes rise the same height every time.