How many grams are in a cup of flour?

One cup of all-purpose flour weighs 120 grams when measured using the spoon-and-level method, which is the standard most U.S. recipes are written around. If you scoop the cup directly into the flour bag instead, you can pack in closer to 140-150 grams, which is enough to throw off a bread or cake recipe. Bread flour runs slightly heavier at about 127 grams per cup, and cake flour is lighter at roughly 114 grams per cup because it's milled finer and sifted.

How many grams is 1 1/2 cups of flour?

1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour weighs 180 grams using the spoon-and-level method. This is the most commonly searched flour conversion after the basic 1-cup measurement, usually because it falls right in the middle of a doubled or 1.5x recipe.

How many grams is 1/2 cup of butter?

1/2 cup of butter weighs 113 grams, which is also exactly one standard US stick of butter. This is one of the few baking conversions that stays accurate by volume, since butter doesn't compress or aerate the way flour and sugar do.

How many grams is 1 cup of sugar?

1 cup of granulated sugar weighs 200 grams. Unlike flour, sugar granules are fairly uniform in size, so the weight stays consistent regardless of how gently or firmly it's scooped into the cup.

What is 3/4 cup in grams?

3/4 cup of all-purpose flour weighs 90 grams. For sugar, 3/4 cup weighs 150 grams, and for butter, 3/4 cup weighs about 170 grams. The exact gram weight always depends on which ingredient you're measuring, since density varies — use the calculator above to check any of the 20+ ingredients on this page.

Is 1 cup of sugar the same weight as 1 cup of flour?

No. A cup of granulated sugar weighs about 200 grams, while a cup of all-purpose flour weighs about 120 grams, even though both fill the same size cup. Weight depends on how densely an ingredient packs and how much air sits between the particles, not on volume. This is exactly why a kitchen scale gives more reliable results than measuring cups when you're converting between ingredients.

Why do cups to grams conversions vary between websites?

Different test kitchens use different measuring techniques. King Arthur Baking uses the spoon-and-level method and lists 120 grams per cup of flour, while some older cookbooks and other test kitchens report 125-140 grams for the same cup because they scoop and pack. Humidity, how finely an ingredient is milled, and whether it's sifted first also shift the number slightly. This converter uses the King Arthur standard since it's the most widely adopted baseline in modern U.S. baking.

Do I need a kitchen scale for accurate baking?

You don't strictly need one, but it removes the single biggest source of inconsistency in home baking. A basic digital kitchen scale costs very little and takes the guesswork out of dense ingredients like flour, where a packed cup versus a loose cup can differ by 20-30 grams. For recipes with a tight ratio of wet to dry ingredients, like bread or macarons, weighing is the difference between a recipe working and not working.

How do I measure a cup of flour correctly if I don't have a scale?

Fluff the flour in its container first to loosen it, then spoon it into the measuring cup without pressing down, and level off the top with the flat edge of a knife. Never scoop the measuring cup directly into the flour bag, since that compresses the flour and can add 15-20% extra weight. This spoon-and-level method is what the 120-gram-per-cup standard is based on.

Are US cups and UK cups the same size?

No, and this trips up a lot of bakers following recipes across regions. A US cup is 240 milliliters, while a UK/Commonwealth 'metric cup' is typically listed as 250 milliliters. The gap is small for liquids but can matter in precise baking like macarons or laminated dough. When a recipe lists both cups and grams, always default to the gram measurement for accuracy regardless of which country it's from.

Does butter measured in cups equal the same weight as sticks?

Yes, US butter packaging is standardized so this conversion is reliable. One stick of butter equals 1/2 cup, which equals 113 grams. Two sticks make one full cup at 227 grams. Unlike flour or sugar, butter doesn't compress or aerate the way dry ingredients do, so cup and stick measurements for butter are consistently accurate without needing a scale.

What's the difference between weighing dry ingredients and liquid ingredients?

Liquid ingredients like water, milk, and oil have a fixed density, so 1 cup of water reliably weighs close to 240 grams and converts predictably. Dry ingredients like flour, cocoa powder, and powdered sugar are made of particles with air pockets between them, so their weight per cup changes depending on how they're scooped, sifted, or packed. That's the core reason bakers weigh dry ingredients but often still measure liquids by volume.

Cups to Grams Converter | Baking Ingredient Weight Chart – Bia Flavors

Free Baking Tool

Cups to Grams Converter

Turn any cup measurement into an exact gram weight for flour, sugar, butter, and 20+ everyday baking ingredients — the same conversion standard I use to test every recipe on this site.

Ingredient

Amount (cups)

120g

4.25 oz

Based on the spoon-and-level method — the standard most U.S. recipes are written around.

Weight varies with how an ingredient is scooped. For flour, spoon it into the cup and level it — don’t pack it in.

How Many Grams Are in a Cup? (Flour, Quick Reference)

Cups (Flour)	Grams
1/4 cup	30g
1/3 cup	40g
1/2 cup	60g
3/4 cup	90g
1 cup	120g
1 1/4 cups	150g
1 1/2 cups	180g
2 cups	240g

Based on the spoon-and-level method for all-purpose flour. Use the calculator above for 20+ other ingredients, including sugar and butter.

Why It Matters

Why bake by weight instead of by cups?

A measuring cup tells you volume, not mass — and in baking, mass is what actually reacts with your leavening, fat, and liquid. Two bakers can each measure “1 cup of flour” and end up with a 20-30 gram difference depending on whether they spooned it in lightly or scooped straight from the bag. That gap is small enough to ignore in a stew, but large enough to turn a tender cake into a dense one, or a crisp cookie into a cakey one. A digital kitchen scale removes that variable entirely, which is why grams have become the default unit in professional baking and in most modern recipe development.

This converter uses the King Arthur Baking standard of 120 grams per cup of all-purpose flour, the most widely referenced baseline in U.S. home baking, alongside standard weights for sugar, butter, and other common pantry ingredients. If you’re following a recipe from a UK or Canadian source, keep in mind that a “metric cup” abroad is often measured at 250ml rather than the US 240ml — another reason to default to the gram measurement whenever one is listed.

Quick Reference

Baking ingredient weight chart

The most common dry and liquid ingredient conversions, all based on 1 US cup (240ml).

Ingredient	1 Cup	Grams	Ounces

Get It Right

Common measuring mistakes that throw off a recipe

Scooping flour directly from the bag packs it 15-20% denser than spooning it in, which is the single biggest cause of dry, tough baked goods.

Packed vs. loose brown sugar changes the weight significantly — always pack it firmly unless a recipe says otherwise.

Cold butter cut from the stick wrapper measures accurately by the printed lines; softened butter pressed into a cup measure does not.

Sifted flour and unsifted flour can differ by 10+ grams per cup — check whether your recipe means “1 cup flour, sifted” or “1 cup sifted flour.”

Frequently Asked

Cups to grams: common questions

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