Cooking
How many grams are in a cup of flour?
Convert cups, tablespoons and teaspoons to grams for flour, sugar, butter and more.
Quick answer
US cup conversions depend on ingredient density: grams = quantity × cup fraction × grams per cup. One cup of all-purpose flour = 125 g; one tablespoon (1/16 cup) = 125 ÷ 16 ≈ 7.8 g. Butter is denser: 1 cup = 227 g.
Equivalent in grams
125 g
- 1 cup of all-purpose flour
- 125 g
How it works
| Ingredient | 1 cup | 1/2 cup | 1 tablespoon |
|---|---|---|---|
| All-purpose flour | 125 g | 63 g | 8 g |
| Granulated sugar | 200 g | 100 g | 13 g |
| Powdered sugar | 120 g | 60 g | 8 g |
| Butter | 227 g | 114 g | 14 g |
| Cocoa powder | 100 g | 50 g | 6 g |
| Rice | 185 g | 93 g | 12 g |
| Milk | 245 g | 123 g | 15 g |
| Water | 240 g | 120 g | 15 g |
| Oil | 218 g | 109 g | 14 g |
| Honey | 340 g | 170 g | 21 g |
| Grated parmesan | 90 g | 45 g | 6 g |
A cup is a volume, not a weight, so the same cup holds 125 g of flour and 340 g of honey — a factor of nearly three. That is why an American recipe scaled by cups goes wrong the moment you swap one ingredient for another by eye. Flour is also the one people get wrong twice over: scooping the cup straight into the bag packs it and can add 20-30 g, which is a fifth of the intended amount. Spoon the flour into the cup and level it off, or weigh it — the grams column exists precisely so you can skip the cup altogether.
| Cups of flour | Grams | Ounces |
|---|---|---|
| 1/4 cup | 31 g | 1.1 oz |
| 1/3 cup | 42 g | 1.5 oz |
| 1/2 cup | 63 g | 2.2 oz |
| 3/4 cup | 94 g | 3.3 oz |
| 1 cup | 125 g | 4.4 oz |
| 1 1/4 cups | 156 g | 5.5 oz |
| 1 1/2 cups | 188 g | 6.6 oz |
| 2 cups | 250 g | 8.8 oz |
| 3 cups | 375 g | 13.2 oz |
| 4 cups | 500 g | 17.6 oz |
Volume measures are imprecise for baking — a packed vs sifted cup of flour can differ by 20 g. Weighing in grams gives repeatable results. The calculator includes common staples; for unlisted ingredients, look up grams per cup and multiply.
For American recipes in a metric kitchen, a measuring cups set handles volume fractions while a precision kitchen scale confirms the gram output — especially for flour and brown sugar where scoop technique shifts weight. Liquids can be poured to the line in a measuring jug; sticky ingredients like honey still weigh more reliably on the scale.
Two traps behind the numbers. A US cup is 236 ml, a metric cup 250 — a 6% gap that ruins nothing in a soup and ruins a cake. And volume only equals weight for water: a cup of flour is about 120 g, a cup of sugar about 200 g, so converting "a cup" without knowing the ingredient is a guess. If a recipe matters, weigh it — and if the recipe is American, check whether it is a US or an imperial measure before you start, not halfway through.
The table above runs from cups to grams because that is how an American recipe is written. Plenty of people need it the other way round: the recipe says 100 g and there is no scale in the drawer. Divide by what one tablespoon of that ingredient weighs and you are done — 100 g of flour is about 13 level tablespoons, while 100 g of honey is only about 4.5, because a spoon of honey weighs nearly three times a spoon of flour. Level the spoon with a knife; heaped spoons are where this goes wrong, and they run 30-50% over.
| Level tablespoons for | 50 g | 100 g | 200 g | 1 teaspoon weighs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All-purpose flour | 6.5 | 13 | 26 | 2.6 g |
| Granulated sugar | 4 | 8 | 16 | 4.2 g |
| Powdered sugar | 6.5 | 13 | 27 | 2.5 g |
| Butter | 3.5 | 7 | 14 | 4.7 g |
| Cocoa powder | 8 | 16 | 32 | 2.1 g |
| Rice | 4.5 | 8.5 | 17 | 3.9 g |
| Oil | 3.5 | 7.5 | 15 | 4.5 g |
| Honey | 2.5 | 4.5 | 9.5 | 7.1 g |
| Grated parmesan | 9 | 18 | 36 | 1.9 g |
One measure deliberately missing here is the drinking glass. A "glass" is not a unit — the ones in your cupboard run from 150 to 350 ml, so any page that tells you a glass of flour is X grams has made the number up. If a recipe says a glass, it means whatever glass its author owned. Use the spoons above, or fill your glass with water once: the grams of water it holds are its millilitres, and from there the table on this page does the rest.
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Frequently asked questions
How many calories are in a tablespoon of oil?+
About 123 kcal, and a teaspoon about 41. Oil is the one ingredient on this page where the answer follows from the weight alone: it is essentially pure fat, and fat carries 9 kcal per gram, so a 13.6 g tablespoon lands there whichever oil it is — olive, sunflower and seed oils are within a rounding error of each other. Do not extend the trick to the rest of the table: flour, sugar and milk need their composition, not just their weight, and this page does not carry it.
US cup vs metric cup — are they the same?+
No. A US cup is 240 ml; a metric cup is 250 ml. This calculator uses US cups. For metric cups, multiply results by 250/240 ≈ 1.04. Australian recipes sometimes use a 250 ml cup — check the recipe origin before converting.
How many grams in a tablespoon of sugar?+
Granulated sugar: about 12.5 g per tablespoon (200 g per cup ÷ 16). Powdered sugar is lighter (~7.5 g/tbsp). Brown sugar packed into the spoon runs closer to 13–14 g because of trapped air and moisture.
Can I use ml instead of grams for liquids?+
For water and milk, 1 ml ≈ 1 g. For oil and honey, density differs: 1 cup oil ≈ 218 g, 1 cup honey ≈ 340 g. Maple syrup and condensed milk sit between water and honey — use the ingredient preset or weigh if precision matters.
Why do European recipes use grams?+
Europe standardised on metric weight; US home kitchens adopted volume measures. Professional bakers everywhere prefer grams for accuracy — a scale removes the "packed or sifted?" ambiguity that ruins cakes and cookies.
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