Cooking Converter

Volume, weight and ingredient density

Recipes mix two kinds of measurement. Cups, tablespoons and teaspoons are volume units, while grams and ounces are weight units. Converting between volume units is simple multiplication: this tool uses the US customary cup of 240 millilitres, with one tablespoon equal to 15 millilitres and one teaspoon equal to 5 millilitres. An ounce here is a weight ounce of about 28.35 grams. Because the relationships are fixed, the widget can show every equivalent at the same time from a single input.

Converting between volume and weight is where an ingredient matters. A cup of flour is light and fluffy, while a cup of sugar is dense and a cup of butter is denser still. The bridge between millilitres and grams is density, measured in grams per millilitre. The formula the script uses is grams = millilitres × density, and it reverses the same way when you start from a weight. Selecting flour, sugar or butter swaps in a typical density so the gram and ounce figures reflect that specific ingredient instead of plain water.

Tips for accurate kitchen conversions

Density presets are averages, so use them as practical guides rather than laboratory values. How you scoop flour, whether sugar is granulated or powdered, and how soft the butter is can all shift the real weight. For baking, where ratios matter most, weighing ingredients on a scale is more reliable than measuring by volume, and this converter helps you move a recipe from cups to grams once and then weigh consistently after that. For everyday cooking, the volume equivalents are usually close enough to get a good result. Everything runs locally in your browser, so your recipes and amounts are never uploaded or stored anywhere.

Handy equivalences and regional differences

With the values used here, one cup equals 16 tablespoons or 48 teaspoons, and one tablespoon equals three teaspoons. A weight of 100 grams is about 3.53 ounces. Density results follow the same formula: an ingredient with a density of 0.5 g/ml would weigh 120 g per 240 ml cup.

Cup sizes are not universal. This tool uses 240 ml, but a legal US cup is about 237 ml, a metric cup in Australia is 250 ml and an imperial cup is about 284 ml. For most recipes the difference is small, but it adds up across several cups in bread or pastry. Also remember that a fluid ounce measures volume while the ounce here measures weight, so the two are interchangeable only roughly, and only for water-like liquids.