Baking Ingredient Weight Chart (Cups to Grams & Ounces)

Leaveners and salt: use teaspoons

How to use the chart

Find the ingredient, then check the words beside its name. Packed brown sugar and loose brown sugar are different measurements. Spoon-and-level flour is different from a cup pushed through a bag. Multiply the listed grams by your number of cups. If your recipe already provides grams, use those directly instead of converting them back through this chart. This avoids introducing a second assumption into a recipe that already has a defined weight.

The ounce column means weight ounces, measured on a scale. It does not mean fluid ounces on a measuring jug. Set a digital scale to grams, place an empty bowl on it, and press tare so the display returns to zero. Add the ingredient until you reach the target. If adding several ingredients to one bowl, tare between additions and keep a written checklist so you do not accidentally omit something.

Where these reference values come from

The cup values are common reference weights from the King Arthur Baking ingredient weight chart, rounded to whole grams. That reference uses about 120 grams for all-purpose flour. Other recipes use 125 grams or another stated value. These are conventions for a measuring method, not proof that one recipe is wrong. Spoon weights are approximate; salt crystal shape particularly changes how much fits into a teaspoon.

Use the chart as a translation aid for a recipe that lacks weights. It is not an ingredient substitution chart. A cup of bread flour and a cup of all-purpose flour can have similar reference weights while behaving differently in dough. Likewise, replacing sugar with an equal weight of another sweetener changes more than the total mass. If you need a replacement, read the baking substitutions guide before changing the shopping list.

Worked example: flour for a cake

Suppose a cake calls for two and a half cups of all-purpose flour and provides no weight. At the chart’s convention, multiply 2.5 by 120 to get 300 grams. Weigh 300 grams into your bowl. If the author says a cup means 125 grams, the same recipe instead calls for 312.5 grams. Follow the author’s 312.5 grams rather than averaging the two numbers. The recipe’s intended balance matters more than agreement between conversion websites.

For a smaller batch, calculate the entire flour quantity first and then scale it. Half of 300 grams is 150 grams. This is easier to reproduce than measuring one cup plus a quarter cup with two separate fills. The cups-to-grams calculator handles other quantities, and the recipe scaler can apply the same multiplier to the rest of your ingredient list.

Worked example: sugar and butter are not flour

One and a half cups of granulated sugar at 198 grams per cup gives 297 grams. The same cup amount of butter gives 340.5 grams using 227 grams per cup. Neither quantity should be assigned the 180 grams that one and a half cups of flour would weigh. A conversion works only when the ingredient is named. Writing “cups to grams” without the ingredient leaves out the most useful part of the calculation.

When a butter wrapper has tablespoon or stick marks, those can be a convenient alternative to packing butter into a cup. For an unfamiliar package, weigh it or use the butter converter. Avoid reading a partially melted block against the side of a dry cup: voids around solid pieces can make it look fuller than it really is. Keep the recipe’s requested temperature separate from the quantity you measure.

Why weights vary between kitchens

Dry ingredients contain air between particles. Moving flour with a spoon leaves a different arrangement from pressing a cup into a storage container. Sifting changes that arrangement again. A finely chopped nut mixture fits together differently from large pieces. Humidity, settling during storage, and differences between products also affect what ends up in a fixed volume. The chart cannot observe any of these conditions in your kitchen, which is why its values are labeled approximate.

Ingredient preparation belongs in your notes. Record whether nuts were measured whole and then chopped, or chopped before filling the cup. Record whether powdered sugar was sifted before measurement. For a recipe you make often, weigh your usual measured portion once and save the result beside the recipe. That personal reference preserves the version you actually like, instead of forcing an old family recipe to adopt a new convention without a trial bake.

Measuring without a scale

Use a dry measuring cup for flour and other scoopable ingredients. Loosen the flour, spoon it into the cup, and sweep the top flat with a straight edge. Do not tap the cup against the counter to make space. Use a liquid jug on a level surface for milk and oil, reading the mark at eye height. A mug, drinking glass or serving spoon has no dependable relationship to a standardized measuring cup or spoon.

For brown sugar, follow the recipe’s packing instruction rather than treating it like flour. For chopped nuts, fill without deliberate compression unless directed otherwise. Use level measuring spoons for leaveners and salt, and break up visible lumps before measuring. The flour measuring guide walks through the dry-cup method in more detail. Consistent technique is more useful than chasing a decimal that your measuring equipment cannot resolve.

Cups, milliliters and international recipes

This chart uses US recipe cups. A metric cup marked 250 milliliters and a US customary cup are not identical. Some recipe publishers use a rounded 240-milliliter cup convention. Check the recipe’s origin and its measurement notes before combining a cup value from one country with a spoon or jug from another. If the recipe supplies metric weights, choosing those weights sidesteps the ambiguity and keeps every ingredient on the same system.

A fluid ounce is also a volume unit, while the ounces in this chart are mass. A scale with an “fl oz” setting generally makes an assumption about the liquid being weighed. It does not identify flour, syrup or oil. Keep the scale on grams for dry ingredients and use a volume tool when a recipe specifically calls for a liquid volume. Labels such as “net weight” and “fluid volume” help distinguish what a package is actually reporting.

Rounding and tiny quantities

Round ordinary flour and sugar quantities to a gram when that matches your scale’s display. Avoid pretending that a rounded cup reference becomes laboratory precision after multiplication. For a very small amount of salt or leavener, a level fraction of a teaspoon can be more dependable than a kitchen scale that barely responds to the addition. A precision scale can help, but only when its resolution and minimum load suit the amount being measured.

Do not round every intermediate step in a multi-stage conversion. Calculate the full target, then round at the end to a measure you can actually use. If a scaled recipe needs an awkward spoon amount, the tablespoon and teaspoon converter explains the options. Keep the original recipe alongside the converted version until you have baked it, so a surprising result can be traced to a specific change.

A practical kitchen reference

Before you begin, check that the bowl sits fully on the scale and does not lean against a nearby appliance. Recheck the unit after changing batteries or moving the scale. Put sticky ingredients in a separate bowl if recovering an overshoot would otherwise be difficult. A little preparation makes weighing faster because you spend less time scraping, counting cupfuls or wondering whether the last addition was already included.

Save your final gram list with the recipe name, brand notes and batch size. If the result is successful, that list becomes your repeatable starting point. If it needs adjustment, change one ingredient or technique at a time. A chart is most useful when it supports a clear record of your own recipe, rather than replacing every measurement with a new number each time you bake.

Frequently asked questions

Related tools and guides

• Cups to grams
• Butter converter
• Recipe scaler
• How many cups in a pound of flour and sugar