Cooking Converter
This free cooking measurement converter handles cups, tablespoons, teaspoons, grams, ounces, fluid ounces, and milliliters, and unlike generic unit converters, it accounts for ingredient density. A cup of flour and a cup of honey don't weigh the same, so select an ingredient for an accurate gram conversion instead of a one-size-fits-all water-based estimate.
How to Use It
- Select an ingredient from the dropdown (or leave it unselected for a water-equivalent conversion).
- Enter an amount and choose its unit: cups, tablespoons, teaspoons, grams, ounces, milliliters, or fluid ounces.
- All seven unit equivalents update instantly below.
- Change the amount, unit, or ingredient at any time to recalculate live.
How It Works
Volume units (cups, tablespoons, teaspoons, fluid ounces, milliliters) convert between each other using fixed ratios: a cup is always 16 tablespoons, regardless of what's in it. Weight units (grams, ounces) similarly convert between each other with a fixed ratio. Converting between a volume and a weight, though, requires knowing the ingredient's density, meaning how much a given volume of that specific ingredient weighs.
This tool uses standard density reference values (grams per US cup) for each ingredient in the dropdown. For example, all-purpose flour at roughly 120 g per cup versus honey at roughly 340 g per cup. When you enter an amount, it converts to grams internally using that density, then converts back out to every other supported unit, so all seven results always stay consistent with each other.
If no ingredient is selected, the calculator falls back to treating 1 milliliter as 1 gram, water's density, and flags this clearly, since that assumption is inaccurate for anything that isn't roughly as dense as water.
A worked example: entering 1.5 cups of honey converts to 24 tablespoons, 72 teaspoons, 12 fluid ounces, and 354.88 milliliters by volume (fixed ratios, same for any ingredient), but by weight, using honey's density, that's 510 grams (18 oz). The same 1.5 cups of all-purpose flour, by contrast, weighs only 180 grams (6.3 oz), despite being the identical volume. The gap comes entirely from honey being roughly 2.8x denser than flour.
For more on why volume and weight aren't directly interchangeable, and a working reference table of common baking ingredient weights, see our guide, A Practical Guide to Kitchen Measurement Conversions.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does a cup of flour weigh differently than a cup of sugar?
Weight depends on density, and different ingredients pack differently into the same volume. A cup of light, fluffy flour weighs much less than a cup of dense, syrupy honey, even though both fill the same cup. That's why a generic volume-to-weight converter that assumes water's density gets baking ingredients wrong, and why this tool uses ingredient-specific density figures instead.
Is a US cup the same as a UK cup?
No. A US cup is about 236.6 mL, while a metric cup (used in the UK, Australia, and most recipes outside the US) is exactly 250 mL, about 6% larger. This calculator uses US customary measurements throughout. If a recipe is written in UK or Australian cups, expect your results to be slightly smaller than what that recipe intends.
What does "water-equivalent" mean when no ingredient is selected?
When you don't pick an ingredient, this tool assumes a density of 1 gram per milliliter, the density of water, since that's a reasonable default for liquids and a clearly-flagged fallback for anything else. It will overestimate the weight of light ingredients like flour and underestimate dense ones like honey, so select an ingredient whenever you can for an accurate result.
Why are my grams slightly different from another converter?
Ingredient density varies with things like how tightly an ingredient is packed (spooned vs. scooped flour, packed vs. loose brown sugar) or its moisture content. This tool uses standard baking reference values, but small differences between sources are normal and usually don't meaningfully affect a recipe.
What if my ingredient isn't in the dropdown list?
Use the water-equivalent default (leave the ingredient unselected) as a rough starting point, and adjust based on how the ingredient compares to water: denser ingredients like syrups or oils will weigh a bit more than the water-equivalent estimate, lighter dry ingredients like flour or oats will weigh less. For an exact figure, look up that specific ingredient's grams-per-cup online and do the math manually, since a wrong guess here can throw off a recipe more than just skipping the ingredient selection.
Does the ingredient selection matter for a plain volume-to-volume conversion, like cups to tablespoons?
No. Ingredient density only comes into play when converting between a volume unit and a weight unit. Cups, tablespoons, teaspoons, fluid ounces, and milliliters all convert between each other with the same fixed ratios no matter what ingredient (or none) is selected, and the same is true converting grams to ounces.
Why does the density matter more for some ingredients than others?
It matters most where two ingredients' densities are furthest apart: flour (120 g/cup) versus honey (340 g/cup) is nearly a 3x difference, so picking the wrong one badly skews a weight result. Ingredients closer to water's density (like milk, at roughly 245 g/cup versus water's 236.6 g/cup) are more forgiving if you approximate, though still not perfectly interchangeable.