Baking Conversion FAQ

It depends on the ingredient. One US tablespoon holds 14.8 ml, and that volume weighs 12.5 g as granulated sugar, 7.5 g as all-purpose flour, 14.2 g as butter, and 21.3 g as honey. Grams measure weight and tablespoons measure volume, so density is the missing link between them.

About 0.08 tablespoons of granulated sugar, or 0.13 of all-purpose flour. One gram is roughly a quarter teaspoon of sugar — small enough that a tablespoon is the wrong tool for the job.

Only for water. A metric tablespoon holds 15 ml and 15 ml of water weighs 15 g, which is where the rule of thumb comes from. For sugar it is 12.5 g, for flour 7.5 g, and for honey 21.3 g. This single assumption causes more conversion errors than anything else in baking.

Level, unless the recipe says otherwise. Every value on this site assumes a spoon filled and then scraped flat with a straight edge. A heaped tablespoon holds roughly 1.5 to 2 times as much, which is far too variable to convert.

Use the calculator: enter the gram figure, select your ingredient, and measure out the tablespoons it returns using level spoonfuls. Level each one with the back of a knife — heaping is where the error creeps in.

Because they measure differently. Whether flour is spooned or scooped, cocoa sifted, and brown sugar packed changes the weight by 10–50%. Sites that publish a number without stating the method are the ones that disagree most.

You almost certainly mean grams. A milligram is one thousandth of a gram, so 1 mg of sugar is a few dozen crystals — invisible in a spoon. Divide milligrams by 1,000 to get grams first.

Almost always, yes. "Spoons" in a recipe search means tablespoons by default. If a recipe means teaspoons it will normally write tsp, because the threefold difference matters.

120 grams of all-purpose flour, spooned into the cup and levelled. Scooped straight from the bag it can reach 145 g, a 20% overshoot.

180 grams of all-purpose flour, spooned and levelled.

300 grams of all-purpose flour. At this volume a small per-cup measuring error compounds significantly.

30 grams of all-purpose flour, which is also 4 tablespoons.

Because flour compresses. It settles in the bag, compacts when you scoop, and traps air when you sift. The same cup can hold anywhere from 100 g to 145 g depending purely on handling — which is why serious bakers weigh it.

Up to 20% by weight. Sifting adds air, so a cup of sifted flour weighs less than a cup of unsifted. "1 cup sifted flour" means sift first, then measure; "1 cup flour, sifted" means the opposite.

7.5 grams of all-purpose flour, spooned and levelled — exactly 1/16 of the 120 g cup figure.

No. Bread flour is 127 g per cup, all-purpose 120 g, and sifted cake flour 114 g. Swapping them by volume changes the flour weight by over 10%.

Exactly 16 in a US cup, for every ingredient, because both units measure volume.

5⅓ tablespoons. Measure it as 5 level tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon for an exact result.

Exactly 8 tablespoons, or 24 teaspoons, or 4 fluid ounces.

10⅔ tablespoons — measure as 10 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons.

⅜ of a cup, or 0.375 cups. In practice, measure ¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons.

100 g of granulated sugar, 60 g of all-purpose flour, 113 g of butter, or 118 g of water. The ingredient decides.

For butter, almost exactly ½ cup (one stick). For all-purpose flour, 0.96 cups. For granulated sugar, a little over ½ cup.

No. A US cup is 236.6 ml and a metric cup is 250 ml, a 5.7% difference. Australian, New Zealand and most European measuring cups are metric.

Yes, entirely, with no account and no limit on conversions. The maths runs in your browser, so there is no server cost to recover.

No. The calculation happens on your device and nothing is transmitted. You can disconnect from the internet after the page loads and the calculator will keep working.

Each ingredient has one anchor figure — its weight in grams per US cup — averaged from the values published by major recipe-testing kitchens. Every other unit is derived from that number, so the calculators and charts can never disagree with each other.

Yes. Choose "custom density" and enter the grams-per-cup figure from the packaging or your own weighing. The calculator handles the rest.

Within a percent or two, which is comfortably inside the tolerance of any home recipe. Brand, humidity and storage all move the real weight slightly. For anything requiring genuine precision, use a scale.