Cooking conversions: measures, weight and volume
Cups, spoons, grams, millilitres: the kitchen equivalences you need to follow a recipe without guessing.
Common volumes
| Measure | Equivalent |
|---|---|
| 1 teaspoon (tsp) | 5 ml |
| 1 tablespoon (tbsp) | 15 ml |
| 1 cup (US) | 240 ml |
| 1 glass | ~200-250 ml |
| 1 litre | 1000 ml |
Weight of common ingredients (per 1 cup)
| Ingredient | Approximate weight |
|---|---|
| Flour | 125 g |
| Granulated sugar | 200 g |
| Icing sugar | 120 g |
| Butter | 227 g |
| Raw rice | 185 g |
| Packed brown sugar | 220 g |
These equivalences vary with how dense the ingredient is and how packed it is in the cup — for baking, a scale stays more accurate than a measuring cup.
Tablespoon → grams
| One tbsp of... | Approximate weight |
|---|---|
| Flour | 8 g |
| Sugar | 12 g |
| Butter | 14 g |
| Oil | 13 g |
| Cocoa powder | 5 g |
Imperial ↔ metric conversion
| Imperial | Metric |
|---|---|
| 1 ounce (oz) | 28 g |
| 1 pound (lb) | 454 g |
| 1 US pint | 0.95 l |
| 1 US gallon | 3.79 l |
Adapting a recipe with no scale or measuring cup
| "By eye" reference | Approximate equivalent |
|---|---|
| A knob of butter | ~15-20 g |
| A pinch (between two fingers) | ~1 g |
| A standard bowl | ~250 ml |
| A coffee cup | ~100 ml |
Doubling or halving a recipe
Multiplying every ingredient by the same factor works well for most recipes — but two exceptions are worth watching:
- Salt, spices and leavening agents (yeast, baking soda) don't always scale 1:1 — taste and adjust gradually instead of multiplying mechanically.
- Cooking time doesn't double with quantity: a dish twice the size cooks longer, but not twice as long — trust internal temperature over the clock for larger cuts.
Density: why volume alone isn't enough
100 ml of flour and 100 ml of honey don't weigh the same: density varies enormously by ingredient (flour is airy, honey is dense). That's why precise baking recipes give grams rather than volumes — a volume-to-weight conversion is only reliable for one specific ingredient, never universal.
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