Cooking Converter - Cups to Grams, Tablespoons to ml by Ingredient
Convert cooking measurements
The same amount in other units
| Unit | Amount |
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Cup, tablespoon and teaspoon are US customary (236.6 ml, 14.8 ml, 4.9 ml). Weights are for spooned, unsifted ingredients; packed or sifted amounts differ.
Why cups and grams are not interchangeable
A cup is a volume; a gram is a weight. A cup of flour weighs about 125 g, a cup of sugar 200 g, a cup of honey 340 g — same measure, three different numbers. Converting between the two needs the density of the ingredient, which is exactly what a generic unit converter does not know. This tool knows it for 40 kitchen staples and does the arithmetic both ways.
Steps
- 1 Choose the ingredient, then type the amount and the unit it is written in — cups, tablespoons, millilitres, grams, ounces.
- 2 Pick the unit you want. The result updates immediately, and the table below shows the same amount in every other unit.
- 3 Use the swap button to go the other way, for instance from the grams on a scale back to cups for a recipe.
How the conversion works
Volume units are first converted to millilitres (1 US cup = 236.6 ml, 1 tablespoon = 14.8 ml, 1 teaspoon = 4.9 ml, 1 fluid ounce = 29.6 ml), then multiplied by the ingredient's density in grams per millilitre to get grams, and from grams to ounces or pounds. Going from weight to volume is the same path in reverse. Volume-to-volume and weight-to-weight conversions do not depend on the ingredient at all.
Where the densities come from
Each ingredient's density is derived from standard cup weights published in food-composition databases and baking references: 125 g for a cup of all-purpose flour, 200 g for granulated sugar, 227 g for butter, 340 g for honey, 90 g for oats. They assume the usual way of measuring — flour spooned into the cup and levelled, brown sugar packed, liquids filled to the line.
Why your cup of flour may weigh differently
Flour is the worst offender: scooped straight from the bag and pressed down it can weigh 150 g a cup, spooned loosely 120 g. That 25% swing is why baking recipes increasingly give grams. If a recipe says sifted flour, expect about 10% less than the table; if it says packed brown sugar, the table already assumes packing.
US, metric and imperial cups
The tool uses the US customary cup of 236.6 ml. A metric cup is 250 ml, a US legal cup (on nutrition labels) 240 ml and an old imperial cup 284 ml. For a metric-cup recipe, multiply the result by 1.057; the difference rarely matters for a single cup but adds up over four.