Question 1

Why do serious recipes give weights instead of cups?

Accepted Answer

Because a cup measures volume, and flour is compressible. Scoop a cup straight from the bag and you can pack in 150 g; spoon it in loosely and level it off and you get about 120 g. That is a quarter more flour in the same cup, which is the difference between a tender cake and a dry one. A gram is a gram however you get it into the bowl.

Question 2

How many grams is a cup of flour?

Accepted Answer

About 120-125 g for plain or all-purpose flour, spooned into the cup and levelled with a straight edge. Bread flour sits a touch higher, cake flour a touch lower, and wholemeal higher again. If a recipe was written in cups and you are converting, assume the spoon-and-level method unless it says otherwise — most American recipe writers use it.

Question 3

How many grams is a cup of sugar?

Accepted Answer

Granulated white sugar is about 200 g a cup, and unlike flour it barely changes with how you fill it, because the crystals do not compress. Brown sugar is different: recipes almost always mean it packed, which brings a cup to roughly 213-220 g. Loose brown sugar can be 50 g lighter, so the word 'packed' is doing real work.

Question 4

How much does a stick of butter weigh?

Accepted Answer

One US stick is 113 g — a quarter pound, half a cup, or 8 tablespoons. So a tablespoon of butter is about 14 g. In the UK and Europe butter comes in 250 g blocks instead, which is why American recipes calling for 'one stick' need converting rather than eyeballing.

Question 5

Is a cup the same size everywhere?

Accepted Answer

No, and this catches people out. A US customary cup is 236.6 ml, a US legal cup used on nutrition labels is 240 ml, an Australian and New Zealand metric cup is 250 ml, and the old imperial cup was 284 ml. Between a US cup and a metric cup that is a 6% difference — enough to matter in a cake, not enough to notice in a soup.

Question 6

Do I need to convert liquids too?

Accepted Answer

For water and milk you can treat millilitres and grams as the same, because their density is close enough to 1 g/ml for baking. Honey, syrup and oil are not: honey is about 340 g a cup, where water is about 240 g. Measure sticky liquids by weight if you can — it is also far less wasteful than scraping a measuring cup.

Question 7

What is the right way to measure flour in a cup if I have no scale?

Accepted Answer

Fluff the flour in the bag or tub with a fork, spoon it lightly into the cup without tapping or pressing, then sweep the excess off with the back of a knife. Never scoop with the measuring cup itself and never bang it on the counter. Done consistently, this gets you close to the 120 g figure most recipes assume.

Question 8

Why does my cake come out dry when I follow the recipe exactly?

Accepted Answer

Too much flour is the usual culprit, and cup measuring is the usual cause. A recipe calling for three cups can easily receive 450 g instead of the 360 g intended, which changes the whole ratio of flour to liquid and fat. Converting the recipe to weights once, and writing the grams on it, fixes the problem permanently.

Question 9

Does it matter for bread more than for cakes?

Accepted Answer

It matters for both, but differently. Bread is usually written as baker's percentages against flour weight, so an error in the flour throws off the hydration and you feel it in the dough. Cakes are less forgiving of the error itself: there is no kneading stage where you can judge and adjust, so what goes in the tin is what you get.

Question 10

Which scale should I buy?

Accepted Answer

Any digital kitchen scale that reads in 1 g steps and has a tare button. Tare is the part that matters — you put the bowl on, zero it, add flour to the target, zero again, add sugar. One bowl, no measuring cups to wash, and the numbers are the same every time.

Ingredient	1 cup ≈	1 tbsp ≈
Plain / all-purpose flour	120 g	8 g
Granulated sugar	200 g	12.5 g
Brown sugar, packed	215 g	13.5 g
Butter	227 g (2 sticks)	14 g
Water or milk	240 g	15 g
Honey or syrup	340 g	21 g
Cocoa powder	85 g	5 g

Ingredient	1 Cup = Grams	1 Gram = Cups
All-Purpose Flour	125g	0.0080 cups
Whole Wheat Flour	120g	0.0083 cups
Bread Flour	127g	0.0079 cups
Cake Flour	115g	0.0087 cups
Granulated Sugar	200g	0.0050 cups
Brown Sugar (packed)	220g	0.0045 cups
Powdered Sugar	120g	0.0083 cups
Butter	227g	0.0044 cups
Cocoa Powder	100g	0.0100 cups
Honey	340g	0.0029 cups
Milk	240g	0.0042 cups
Oats	90g	0.0111 cups
Nuts (chopped)	120g	0.0083 cups
Chocolate Chips	170g	0.0059 cups
Coconut (shredded)	80g	0.0125 cups
Raisins	150g	0.0067 cups

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Where	Volume
US customary cup	236.6 ml
US legal cup (nutrition labels)	240 ml
Australia and New Zealand	250 ml
Imperial cup (older UK recipes)	284 ml