Cooking Converter — Free 2026
Convert cups to grams, tablespoons to millilitres, and more. Select an ingredient for accurate volume-to-weight conversions — no sign-up required.
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How It Works
- Enter the amount
- Select units and ingredient
- Read the result
The Complete Guide to Cooking Measurements
If you have ever tried to follow a recipe from a different country, you know the frustration of incompatible measurement systems. American recipes rely heavily on volume measurements — cups, tablespoons, and teaspoons — while European, Australian, and most professional recipes use weight in grams. The problem is that volume and weight are not the same thing. A cup of flour does not weigh the same as a cup of sugar, because the two ingredients have different densities. This is why accurate conversion requires knowing both the units and the ingredient.
Why Weight Is More Accurate Than Volume
Professional bakers worldwide prefer weighing ingredients in grams because it eliminates the biggest source of error in home baking: inconsistent measuring. Two people can scoop a cup of flour from the same bag and get weights ranging from 120g to 160g, depending on whether they scooped directly, spooned the flour in, sifted first, or packed it down. That 40-gram difference represents a 25-30% variation — more than enough to ruin a delicate pastry or cake. Weighing on a digital kitchen scale (available for as little as $10) gives you the same result every time, regardless of technique.
Key Volume Equivalents to Remember
The US customary system of cooking measurements follows a consistent hierarchy. One US cup equals 16 tablespoons, which equals 48 teaspoons, which equals approximately 236.588 millilitres or 8 US fluid ounces. Two cups make a pint, two pints make a quart, and four quarts make a gallon. For metric conversions, 1 tablespoon is approximately 14.79 ml and 1 teaspoon is approximately 4.93 ml. These relationships are purely volumetric and apply universally regardless of ingredient.
Ingredient Density Reference
Where things get interesting — and where this converter becomes essential — is converting between volume and weight. Here are the approximate weights of common baking ingredients per US cup:
- Water: 236g per cup (the reference standard for ml-to-gram conversions)
- All-purpose flour: 125g per cup (spooned and leveled)
- Granulated sugar: 200g per cup
- Butter: 227g per cup (2 standard US sticks)
- Brown sugar (packed): 220g per cup
- Cocoa powder: 85g per cup (sifted)
- Uncooked rice: 185g per cup
- Rolled oats: 90g per cup
For more unit conversions beyond the kitchen, try our unit converter which handles length, weight, temperature, and more. If you are calculating tips on a restaurant bill after a great meal, our tip calculator has you covered.
Imperial vs. Metric: A Global Perspective
The United States is one of only three countries (along with Myanmar and Liberia) that has not officially adopted the metric system. This means American cookbooks, food blogs, and recipe cards overwhelmingly use cups and ounces, while the rest of the world uses grams and millilitres. Australian recipes add another wrinkle: Australia uses a metric cup (250 ml) rather than the US cup (236.588 ml), and an Australian tablespoon is 20 ml versus the US standard of approximately 15 ml. When following a recipe, always check which measuring system the author uses — a small difference in a single ingredient can cascade into a noticeably different result in the finished dish.
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