Cooking Measurement Conversions: A Cheat Sheet for Cups, Spoons and Grams
Recipes are written in the units their authors grew up with, so American recipes use cups and sticks of butter, British recipes use grams and Celsius, and Australian recipes use a 250 ml metric cup. This cheat sheet gives you the numbers you need to cook from any recipe without guessing.
Volume: cups, spoons and milliliters
The standard US measures all build on one another, which makes them easy to learn.
| US measure | Equivalent | Milliliters |
|---|---|---|
| 1 teaspoon | 1/3 tablespoon | 4.93 ml |
| 1 tablespoon | 3 teaspoons | 14.79 ml |
| 1/4 cup | 4 tablespoons | 59 ml |
| 1/3 cup | 5 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon | 79 ml |
| 1/2 cup | 8 tablespoons | 118 ml |
| 1 cup | 16 tablespoons, 8 fl oz | 237 ml |
| 1 pint | 2 cups | 473 ml |
| 1 quart | 4 cups | 946 ml |
Recipes often round a teaspoon to 5 ml and a tablespoon to 15 ml, which is close enough for cooking. Use our volume converters when you want exact figures, including milliliters to ounces and cups to pints.
Why a cup of flour is not a fixed weight
A cup measures volume, but baking works best by weight, because a cup of flour can weigh anywhere from 110 to 150 grams depending on how it is scooped. Water is easy: a cup is about 237 grams. Other ingredients are less predictable. As rough guides:
- All-purpose flour: about 120 to 125 g per cup
- Granulated sugar: about 200 g per cup
- Brown sugar (packed): about 215 g per cup
- Butter: 227 g per cup, which is 2 US sticks of 113 g each
- Honey or syrup: about 340 g per cup
- Uncooked white rice: about 185 g per cup
If you bake often, a kitchen scale is the best investment you can make. It removes the guesswork, and you can switch between metric and imperial recipes with a button. Our weight converters handle ounces, pounds and grams.
Oven temperatures
American recipes use Fahrenheit and most others use Celsius. Fan (convection) ovens usually need about 20 °C (25 to 30 °F) less than a conventional oven. These are the common settings:
| Fahrenheit | Celsius (exact) | Celsius (typical oven dial) |
|---|---|---|
| 250 °F | 121 °C | 120 °C |
| 300 °F | 149 °C | 150 °C |
| 325 °F | 163 °C | 160 °C |
| 350 °F | 177 °C | 180 °C |
| 375 °F | 191 °C | 190 °C |
| 400 °F | 204 °C | 200 °C |
| 425 °F | 218 °C | 220 °C |
| 450 °F | 232 °C | 230 °C |
For any other temperature use the Celsius to Fahrenheit converter.
Watch out for these differences
- Fluid ounces vs ounces. A fluid ounce measures volume and an ounce measures weight. They are only close for water and similar liquids.
- US vs imperial pints. A US pint is 473 ml but a UK pint is 568 ml.
- Australian tablespoons. An Australian tablespoon is 20 ml, not 15 ml.
- Metric cups. A metric cup is 250 ml, about 6 percent larger than a US cup.
With these figures at hand, any recipe in the world is within reach.