🔁 Conversion
Cooking Conversions: Cups, Grams and Millilitres
Recipes from different countries use different units, and cups measure volume while grams measure weight. Learn how to convert between them reliably — including why the same cup of two ingredients weighs differently.
Updated 20 August 2026 · 2 min read
Following a recipe from abroad often means a small translation job. American recipes measure in cups and spoons, British ones lean on grams and millilitres, and older books mix ounces and pints. Getting the conversion right is the difference between a cake that rises and one that doesn't.
The catch: volume vs weight
The trickiest part of cooking conversions is that cups and spoons measure volume (how much space something takes up), while grams and ounces measure weight (how heavy it is). For water they line up neatly, but for dry ingredients they don't:
This is why serious bakers prefer weighing in grams: it's more precise and doesn't depend on how tightly you packed the cup. When a recipe gives cups, the safest conversion goes through the specific ingredient, which is exactly what the cooking measurement converter does.
Liquid measures that do line up
Liquids are more forgiving, because volume is volume. The useful anchors:
- 1 US cup = 240 ml (a metric cup is 250 ml — close, but not identical).
- 1 tablespoon = 15 ml, 1 teaspoon = 5 ml.
- 1 fluid ounce ≈ 30 ml, and 1 US pint = 473 ml (a UK pint is 568 ml).
Oven temperatures travel too
Recipes also disagree on oven temperature — Fahrenheit in the US, Celsius elsewhere, and gas marks in older British books. A moderate oven is around 180 °C, 350 °F or gas mark 4. For anything in between, convert the figure properly rather than guessing; the temperature converter and our guide to temperature scales cover the Celsius–Fahrenheit switch.
A few practical tips
- For baking, weigh in grams whenever you can — it's the most reliable path to a consistent result.
- Convert through the actual ingredient, not a generic rule, since a cup of flour and a cup of sugar weigh differently.
- Note whether a recipe is US or UK before converting cups and pints, as the units differ.
Get these habits down and no recipe is off-limits, wherever it was written. Enter your ingredient and amount below to convert it.
Frequently asked questions
- Why doesn't one cup of flour weigh the same as one cup of sugar?
- Because a cup measures volume, not weight, and the two ingredients have different densities. A cup of flour is around 120 g while a cup of granulated sugar is around 200 g. That's why converting cups to grams has to go through the specific ingredient.
- Is a US cup the same as a metric cup?
- Not quite. A US cup is 240 ml, while a metric cup is 250 ml. The difference is small but can add up in a recipe with several cups, so it's worth knowing which system a recipe was written in before you convert.