Guide · Published June 11, 2026 · By the site maintainer
How to convert recipes between US and metric measurements
To convert a recipe from US to metric, use 240 mL per cup for liquids and a per-ingredient weight chart for dry goods — never a single cups-to-grams number. That's the whole method. The rest of this guide is the tables you need and the handful of places where rounding will quietly ruin a bake.
Liquids are easy because volume converts directly. Dry ingredients aren't, and that's where most converted recipes go wrong.
Should you convert by volume or by weight?
By weight, whenever the recipe gives you the option. A cup is a measure of space, and how much flour fits in that space depends on how you fill it. Flour scooped straight from the bag packs down and can weigh 140 g or more per cup; spooned into the cup and leveled, the same cup holds about 120 g. King Arthur Baking's ingredient weight chart uses 120 g per cup of all-purpose flour as its standard. That gap — close to 17% — is enough to turn a tender cake into a dense one.
A digital kitchen scale removes the question entirely. Metric recipes are written in grams for exactly this reason.
US cups to milliliters: the liquid conversions that matter
The US legal cup is 240 mL, and that's the figure used on US nutrition labels and in most published recipes. (The older US customary cup is 236.588 mL — the difference never matters in a kitchen.) For odd amounts, the cups to mL converter handles the math.
| US measure | Milliliters | Kitchen rounding |
|---|---|---|
| 1 teaspoon | 4.93 mL | 5 mL |
| 1 tablespoon | 14.79 mL | 15 mL |
| 1/4 cup | 60 mL | 60 mL |
| 1/3 cup | 80 mL | 80 mL |
| 1/2 cup | 120 mL | 120 mL |
| 1 cup | 240 mL | 240 mL |
| 1 pint (2 cups) | 480 mL | 475–480 mL |
| 1 quart (4 cups) | 960 mL | 950 mL or 1 L |
One trap for readers outside the US: an Australian tablespoon is 20 mL, not 15 mL. A British recipe's "pint" is 568 mL, not 473 mL. Check which country a recipe comes from before you trust its spoons. The cup has at least five national definitions, which is why metric recipes skip it.
Cups to grams: why every ingredient is different
A cup of honey weighs nearly three times as much as a cup of oats. There is no universal cups-to-grams factor — only per-ingredient ones. These are the values for the most common baking ingredients, spooned and leveled:
| Ingredient (1 cup) | Grams |
|---|---|
| All-purpose flour | 120 g |
| Granulated sugar | 200 g |
| Brown sugar, packed | 213 g |
| Powdered sugar | 113 g |
| Butter | 227 g |
| Rolled oats | 99 g |
| Honey | 340 g |
| Cocoa powder | 84 g |
| Milk or water | 240 g (240 mL) |
If an ingredient isn't listed here, search the manufacturer's site for a weight — packaging often states grams per serving alongside the cup measure. For ounce-marked packages, the ounces to grams converter gets you the rest of the way.
How do you handle butter sticks and tablespoons?
US butter comes in 113 g sticks, four to a pound. Recipes reference sticks, tablespoons, and cups interchangeably, so keep this one line in mind: 1 stick = 8 tablespoons = 1/2 cup = 113 g. A tablespoon of butter is about 14 g. European butter is sold in 250 g blocks, so "half a block" is roughly 2.2 sticks — close enough to two sticks plus two tablespoons.
What about oven temperatures?
Oven dials don't need precision — they need the right neighborhood. Ovens cycle several degrees around their set point anyway, so round to the nearest marked setting:
| Fahrenheit | Celsius | Gas mark | Typical use |
|---|---|---|---|
| 275°F | 140°C | 1 | Low and slow, meringues |
| 325°F | 165°C | 3 | Cheesecakes, pound cake |
| 350°F | 175°C | 4 | Most cakes and cookies |
| 375°F | 190°C | 5 | Pies, breads |
| 400°F | 200°C | 6 | Roast vegetables |
| 425°F | 220°C | 7 | Pizza, crusty bread |
| 450°F | 230°C | 8 | High-heat roasting |
For a temperature that isn't in the table, the Fahrenheit to Celsius converter gives the exact value — then round to the nearest 5°C. One more thing: if the recipe assumes a fan (convection) oven, drop the conventional temperature by about 20°C / 25°F.
Which conversions can you safely round?
Round freely on water, milk, stock, and anything you'd adjust by taste anyway. A soup doesn't care whether it got 950 mL or a full liter. Be exact where chemistry is involved: flour, sugar, butter, leaveners, and salt in baked goods. Five grams of extra baking soda is tasteable; five extra grams of carrots is not.
Salt deserves its own warning. A teaspoon of fine table salt weighs about 6 g, while a teaspoon of Diamond Crystal kosher salt weighs about 3 g. Converting the volume without checking the salt type can double the saltiness of a dish.
Next time a recipe fights you, skip the arithmetic: the mL to cups and grams to ounces converters show the formula with every result, so you can sanity-check the number before anything goes in the bowl.