Baking Basics: How Many Grams Are in a Cup?

This is one of the most common questions I get from people converting from metric to empirical measurements and back again. Anyone used to one system and unfamiliar with the other.

So, how many grams are there in a cup?
Well, it's not that easy. You see, cups are a measurement of volume and grams are a measurement of weight. The conversion of volume to weight is dependent on the substance being measured. That means that a cup of flour weighs a different amount than a cup of sugar. Because sugar is heavier than flour.
If you want to convert cups to metric, the correct conversion is actually one cup is 225 mL. Because milliliters is a volume, that's a good conversion. But it's not grams.
So, I can give you the conversion of a few common ingredients here. There are whole conversion tables online in various places that a simple google search will reveal. But here are some of the most common ingredients I use:

1 cup of flour is about 125g.
1 cup of sugar is about 200g.
1 cup of brown sugar is about 200g.
1 cup of butter is about 225g. However, since butter is sold in 250g packages around here, I often just declare that a cup. It's a generous cup.
1 cup of cocoa powder is about 120g.
1 cup of powdered sugar is about 125g.
All of these conversions are approximate because the actual weight depends on how exactly you fill your cups. Cups aren't as accurate as weighing ingredients.
One warning, though. Be careful of recipes calling for "the same amount" of two ingredients. They must specify if that is the same volume or the same weight. Those are two completely different things!
I hope this information was helpful for all my readers. Happy baking!

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