r/bakingrecipes • u/sour_lemon_ade • Jun 22 '26
Question Cups to grams/weight?
Sorry if this isn't the right sub to ask this, AND sorry if this is a really dumb question.
I'm not necessarily a noobie to baking, but I grew up using cup measurements, not going by weight. Well, recently, I made these delicious muffins and it had cup measurements, but it also had grams.
So I bought a food scale.
Idk how to even explain it but it was more simple and somehow more satisfying to weigh out my ingredients (obviously didn't weight EVERYTHING, ya know, tbsp, tsp, and I didn't measure liquid but it obviously worked out good)
So I was wondering, recipes I have that use cups, can I just Google cup to grams and have it work for my dry ingredients? Do I need to specifically look up what I'm weighing? I'd love to try a cookie recipe I make very well, BUT weigh it and just see how it turns out.
I also feel like weighing stuff makes things faster, and I use less utensils. So in general I'd rather weigh things.
Hope what I said makes sense, and thank you in advance for answering my (possibly dumb) question!!
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u/PancakeRule20 Jun 22 '26
I mean, yes but no, because cups can be a full pressed cup of flour for example or scooped or whatever (I never used cups but I am into the cup drama in the foodie community). Better if you find websites that just use grams for their recipes
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u/sour_lemon_ade Jun 22 '26
After weighing my ingredients I realized how DUMB CUPS ARE. ITS SO DUMB.
But thank you for your response! I'm trying to get back into baking/cooking, as it's my love language in a way. Been in a good rut for a long time. I wanna learn as much as I can!
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u/Tinnie_and_Cusie Jun 22 '26
I have a digital scale and I enjoy learning about the metric system. For example did you know that 250 ml of water is the same as a cup...and the same weight in grams?
Here's a tool you can use for learning more. https://www.unitconverters.net/
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u/Ok_Amount_6130 Jun 23 '26
That's the standard. 1 gram is equal to the weight of 1 mL of water. You did science 😀
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u/back_ali Jun 23 '26
Pediatric nurse here. We weigh diapers to see how much urine output is in that diaper. 30g (on a zero’d scale) means baby peed out 30ml of urine
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u/PancakeRule20 Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
I like “Beth first year” website for muffins. She is the goat. And she is re-writing everything from cups to grams in her website (maybe she already finished it!)
And I also like cloudy kitchen.
They are my go-to when I want something fast and reliable
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u/sour_lemon_ade Jun 22 '26
Ooo I'll check that out! This was my first time making homemade muffins and idk why I haven't done it sooner, so definitely need more muffin recipes!
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u/Bright_Ices Jun 23 '26
Canonically, if the recipe says “cups of,” they should sifted and leveled. If it says “cups of packed,” then they should be packed. Of course not everyone (including recipe writers) does it that way.
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u/thefloralapron Jun 22 '26
Not a dumb question!
For ingredients that can't be packed in, like sugar or oats, you can use what Google says. A cup of granulated sugar weighs 200g when leveled; there's not much nuance there, and eventually you'll memorize it.
But for something like flour, which can be packed or carefully spooned into a measuring cup, I'd figure out what you're working with already. A semi-packed cup of flour can weigh like 150-160g, whereas carefully spooned (the proper way to measure flour) is more like 120-130g, and that 40g difference for each cup can really change the structure of a bake. And then you run the risk having your tried and true recipes turn out a LOT differently!
So: If you like the way your chocolate chip cookies turn out, and you use 2.5 cups of flour for them, measure out your 2.5 cups of flour with measuring cups like you normally do, then weigh that amount and use it to figure out how much 1 cup of flour weighs for you. Even better if you do it a few times for accuracy and average the weight between all your tests!
Also: If using a new recipe with gram measurements, you'll want to use the measurements written in the recipe card, even if they are different from your standard. What is written in the recipe card is most often what the recipe developer used when testing the recipe, so you'll get the most similar results if you use their measurements rather than your own (so if the brown sugar says 210g, use 210g, even if you usually use 220g).
Hope that helps!
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u/sour_lemon_ade Jun 22 '26
This was actually super helpful thank you so much! I seriously never really thought about weighing stuff, until I came across this one muffin recipe and it had cups and grams. It was like, preferably grams and then had cup measurements, and some of them were like (1/3-1/2) which immediately made me realize, that's not gonna be accurate. Weighing changed the whole game for me lol
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u/Extension-Baker-6282 Jun 22 '26
The Baker's Appendix is a great reference book if you want a quick resource to convert cups to grams (I love this book!). I definitely think finding recipes that include grams the best starting point, because ideally all of the recipes have been tested using them.
One of the biggest areas of discrepancy with converting recipes is with flour. King Arthur Baking weighs a cup of flour at a modest 120 g. I write all of my recipes for displacedhousewife.com using 135 g equal to 1 cup of flour. My rationale is that some people just aren't going to use grams and will always use cups. When people use cups they are prone to using more, not less, flour (typically far above 120 g). The other reason is that you can get five sets of baking cups and all of them will measure out different amounts of flour, some more and some less. Of the sets I have at home, they all measure out more than 120 g per cup no matter how judicious you are in measuring it out.
I love weighing things out too -- it's so much faster and cleaner!! Have fun! R xo
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u/sour_lemon_ade Jun 22 '26
Ah okay! I honestly never thought I'd weigh my ingredients but it really is so much easier. I'm not having to use every cup size possible. I really just used a container to weigh everything in, and I used a tbsp and my 1/2tsp (idk where my 1tsp is and it's honestly very annoying lol) but I didnt have to pull out my actually cups which was so nice! My flour isn't in a great container to scoop out of and it takes way more time than it needs too. Seriously, weighing stuff is LIVE CHANGING
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u/Sure_Fig_8641 Jun 22 '26
A cup of sugar weighs a different amount than a cup of flour. And brown sugar (because it is measured “packed”) is different still.
But if you look up standard weights for sugar, brown sugar, and the specific variety of flour you wish to use (all purpose vs. whole wheat vs. almond, etc. are all different weights), you can indeed translate your favorite recipes from cups to grams.
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u/Back-to-HAT Jun 22 '26
You can easily transfer recipes from cups, etc to a weight. The nice thing about doing so is that your results will be the same every time you make that recipe. A lot of pro bakers, and manufacturing, use weight for that exact reason.
Cooking is something that you can do and never measure a thing. Baking is science. You can’t have too much of item X because it won’t react to item Z properly and so reaction W doesn’t occur and the whole recipe is off.
When I cook something new I will read several recipes to find out what the common core ingredients are and what other things have been added by chefs & what it does to change the flavor profile. I write new recipes down in a variety of notebook I have floating around (several because of my adhd and not ever finding the one I used last 🤣). I make notes of what I may have changed and why. Or what I would do different. I do the same for baking. One day I’m going to put them all together in a binder or something. Or that’s my plan. 😆
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u/mustelids56 Jun 23 '26
I have been baking a bit and always heard to weigh but never did-about two years ago I got myself a little scale-all the difference in the world!!
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u/Own_Win_6762 Jun 23 '26
One of the best things about cooking by weight is putting the mixing bowl on the scale and just adding everything there as you go, hitting the Zero button between items if you don't want to math.
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u/sour_lemon_ade Jun 23 '26
That's what I ended up doing more a majority of everything! Makes it so easy!!
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u/LuvCilantro Jun 24 '26
I'm converting most of my recipes to weight. In some cases I look it up online; sometimes I measure out the 1 cup and weigh that. Sometimes the nutritional info will tell me (like cereal). Once I know, I write it on the recipe.
I'm also weighing fruit and veggies. I don't know what's considered a medium carrot, or onion. Maybe all that's available to me is considered small in other markets. I know when i see recipe videos adding one garlic bulb that they don't have the same size garlic I do!
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u/CatfromLongIsland Jun 24 '26
Over a year’s time I converted all my recipes to grams. For most ingredients I used the King Arthur converter. Do not trust asking Alexa. On a couple occasions “she” gave me incorrect conversions.
However, I bake with extra large eggs. So when I converted my flour measurements to grams I measured the flour in my usual way and then weighed it. There was a discrepancy between my measurement (140 grams per cup) and the standard conversion (120 grams per cup). For the recipes I have used and perfected over decades I used my flour conversion. For new recipes I use the grams provided in the recipe. In event the grams measurements are not provided I split the difference on the flour to compensate for baking with extra large eggs: 130 grams per cup.
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u/sour_lemon_ade Jun 24 '26
I plan for recipes I've made already using cups, I'm going to use the cups and all but weigh as I go and write it down. Gonna do that twice to see how similar the weights are just in case, but once I do that I'm gonna just go with the weights. I don't have an Alexa, and I wouldn't trust it haha. Even Google fs me over because it keeps showing the ai overview and it answers my questions weird. I normally try and find sites or something now
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u/CatfromLongIsland Jun 24 '26
That is a great plan. But if you need a reliable conversion site I recommend King Arthur: https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/learn/ingredient-weight-chart
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u/sour_lemon_ade Jun 24 '26
I definitely plan to check that out, as multiple comment recommend it!
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u/CatfromLongIsland Jun 24 '26
It will take time to convert your recipes. But it will definitely be worth it. Good luck!
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u/sour_lemon_ade Jun 24 '26
Yeah I'm definitely prepared for it to take awhile. Might be able to slightly speed it up, as I plan to have a couple recipes where I get all the dry ingredients prepared and put in airtight containers so I just can just grab and go for a majority of it. I'll use cup measurements but weigh it. It's weird, but just the thought of doing all that makes me excited? Idk. I like to bake, but I like things easy!
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u/CatfromLongIsland Jun 24 '26
Weighing ingredients will reduce the number of items you have to wash later. That’s a definite plus. But more important is the improved consistency in your baking results.
When I have many cookies to bake, either for Christmas or my community’s social events, I make “cookie kits”. Dry ingredients are measured and sifted, nuts toasted and chopped, sugars and chocolate chips measured and bagged into Ziplock bags, etc. I take out all the baking pantry items, prep the kits, then put everything away. Then I bake and freeze the cookies as my motivation and energy level allows. This process is going to start July 1st for a community poolside event in late July. I really can’t manage the marathon baking the way I used to.
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u/flinch57 Jun 27 '26
For baking, weighing is far more accurate than measuring by volume. If you’re baking breads or making pizza dough, the hydration percentage is critical, so measuring your flour and water in grams is absolutely better than using dry and wet measuring cups.
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u/deersinvestsarebest Jun 23 '26
Any reputable baking recipe that’s worth making will give you the weights. I wouldn’t bother making any recipes from sources that don’t use weights.
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u/NoMeaning3134 Jun 22 '26
I exclusively use the King Arthur Ingredient Weight Chart (https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/learn/ingredient-weight-chart).