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.