How many grams is a cup of flour?

About 125 grams for all-purpose flour measured by spooning and levelling. If you scoop directly with the cup you will get closer to 150, which is why weighing is more reliable.

Why does the converter ask which ingredient?

Because volume-to-weight depends on density. A cup of cocoa powder is 85 grams and a cup of honey is 336 — nearly a fourfold difference for the same volume.

Cooking Measurement Converter

Convert cups, tablespoons and millilitres to grams and ounces, using the density of the actual ingredient.

Draft — figures checked, awaiting an editorial read. Not indexed.

Result—

Formula: Volume → millilitres → (× ingredient density) → grams → target unit. Crossing between volume and weight requires the ingredient.

What this calculates

This converts recipe quantities between volume measures and weight, which is the conversion that actually causes trouble in a kitchen. Volume-to-volume is easy and any chart can do it. Volume-to-weight is not, because it depends entirely on what is in the cup: a cup of flour is about 125 grams, a cup of granulated sugar about 200, and a cup of honey about 336. Any converter that offers "cups to grams" without asking what you are measuring is giving one answer to a question that has thirteen different answers on this page alone.

How it works

The input is normalised to millilitres of the chosen ingredient. If you entered a volume, that is a straight multiplication. If you entered a weight, it divides by the ingredient's density to get back to volume. The result is then converted out to whatever unit you asked for, multiplying by the density again if the target is a weight. The densities come from the standard US cup weights used by King Arthur Baking and most American recipe publishers — notably 125 grams per cup for all-purpose flour, which assumes the spoon-and-level method rather than scooping.

Worked example

Two cups of all-purpose flour to grams: 2 × 236.588 ml = 473.18 ml, times the flour density of 0.5283 g/ml = 250 grams. The same two cups of honey would be 473.18 × 1.42 = 672 grams — nearly three times the mass for the same volume, which is exactly why the ingredient matters. Going the other way, 500 grams of sugar is 500 ÷ 0.8453 = 591.5 ml, which is 2.5 US cups.

Common mistakes

Scooping flour with the measuring cup rather than spooning it in and levelling. Scooping compacts the flour and can add 20% more than the recipe intended, which is the single most common cause of dry baked goods — and it is why serious baking recipes give weights. Second, assuming a cup is a cup: the US cup is 236.6 ml, the metric cup used in Australia is 250 ml, and older UK recipes may use a 284 ml cup. Third, confusing fluid ounces with ounces by weight.

Common questions

How many grams is a cup of flour?: About 125 grams for all-purpose flour measured by spooning and levelling. If you scoop directly with the cup you will get closer to 150, which is why weighing is more reliable.
Why does the converter ask which ingredient?: Because volume-to-weight depends on density. A cup of cocoa powder is 85 grams and a cup of honey is 336 — nearly a fourfold difference for the same volume.