Ask ten people to measure a cup of flour and you'll get ten different weights, from about 120 to 160 grams, depending on how they scoop. Professional recipes avoid that by weighing.
Key idea
Weigh dry ingredients. Put the bowl on the scale, press tare (zero), and add the ingredient until you reach the weight. Key conversions: 1 ounce = 28.35 grams; 1 pound = 16 ounces = 453.6 grams; 1 kilogram = 1,000 grams = 2.2 pounds. Fluid ounces measure volume; ounces measure weight. They match only for water and liquids like it.
| Volume | Equals |
|---|---|
| 3 teaspoons | 1 tablespoon |
| 2 tablespoons | 1 fluid ounce |
| 16 tablespoons | 1 cup = 8 fluid ounces |
| 2 cups | 1 pint |
| 4 cups | 1 quart = 32 fluid ounces |
| 4 quarts | 1 gallon |
| 1 cup water | about 237 milliliters, weighing about 237 grams |
Why it works
Weighing is faster too: no leveling, fewer dirty cups, and you can scale a recipe by multiplying. Salt is a good example: a tablespoon of fine table salt weighs nearly twice as much as a tablespoon of flaky kosher salt, so recipes in grams avoid oversalting.
Worked example: Ounces to grams
A recipe calls for 12 ounces of butter. How many grams?
- $12 \times 28.35 = 340.2$.
Answer: About 340 grams.
Worked example: Grams to pounds
You have 2,500 grams of potatoes. How many pounds?
- $2500 \div 453.6 \approx 5.51$.
Answer: About 5.5 pounds.
Common mistake
Measuring honey or oil in fluid ounces and calling it weight. A cup of honey weighs about 12 ounces, not 8.
Practice at home
- Scoop a cup of flour straight from the bag and weigh it. Then spoon flour into the cup and level it, and weigh again. Write down both weights.
- Weigh a level tablespoon of table salt and one of kosher salt.
In Meal Prep
- Measurements and conversions: a full table
- Table, kosher and sea salt: why they measure differently