Recipe Unit Converter

The Recipe Unit Converter tackles a common kitchen problem: the recipe says cups, tablespoons and teaspoons, but your measuring jug is marked in millilitres. It has two parts. The first converts between six volume units: millilitres, litres, cups, tablespoons, teaspoons and fluid ounces. The second gives a rough gram weight for a handful of common ingredients, based on the number of cups. The weight part is a rule-of-thumb estimate, not an exact conversion, and the tool has no ingredient database or online lookup.

How to use it

1. Type the number you want to convert into "Amount". The default is 1.
2. Pick the unit you have in "From" and the unit you want in "To". The choices are millilitre, litre, cup, tablespoon, teaspoon and fluid ounce.
3. The result line reads "amount unit = result unit", rounded to two decimal places.
4. To estimate weight, choose an ingredient under "Choose an ingredient" (all-purpose flour, granulated sugar, packed brown sugar, butter, milk/water, cocoa powder or honey). The line below shows roughly how many grams the amount above would weigh, shown as a whole number.
5. For precise recipes, treat the grams as a guide and check them on a kitchen scale.

Worked example

These numbers come from the conversion factors built into the tool. 1 cup is 236.59 ml. 2 cups is 32 tablespoons. 1 cup is 8.00 fluid ounces. 1 tablespoon is 3 teaspoons. 250 ml is about 1.06 cups. For weight, the tool uses 120 g of all-purpose flour per cup, so 1 cup of flour shows as 120 g, 3 tablespoons shows as 23 g (22.5 rounded), and an amount of 250 ml of flour shows as 127 g. Note that these are volume-to-weight estimates; loosely spooned and packed flour can weigh quite differently.

The conversion factors used

• Millilitre 1, litre 1000 ml, US legal cup 236.588 ml, tablespoon 14.7868 ml, teaspoon 4.92892 ml, fluid ounce 29.5735 ml (all US customary).
• Cups, tablespoons and teaspoons use the US legal values. Many recipes and measuring tools round these to 240 ml, 15 ml and 5 ml, which differs by about 1 to 2 percent.
• Grams per cup used for weight estimates: all-purpose flour 120, granulated sugar 200, packed brown sugar 220, butter 227, milk/water 240, cocoa powder 85, honey 340.

Supported features and known limits

• Volume units only. There is no conversion between grams and ounces, and none for Celsius and Fahrenheit.
• There are no UK imperial cups, Canadian cups, or the Australian 20 ml tablespoon. Cups and spoons differ slightly by country, so check where your recipe comes from.
• Only seven ingredients are covered, with fixed rule-of-thumb figures. Real weight varies with how loose the ingredient is, its moisture and the brand.
• Weight is worked out via cups: the amount is converted to millilitres, divided by 236.588 to get cups, then multiplied by that ingredient's grams per cup.
• An empty or unreadable amount is treated as 0. Results are rounded, so a very small amount can show as 0.00.
• Fluid ounces use the US value of 29.5735 ml, which differs from the imperial fluid ounce of about 28.4 ml.

How many millilitres is one cup?

It varies by region. This tool uses the US legal cup of 236.588 ml. Many recipes and cups round this to 240 ml, about 1.4% more. If your measuring cup is 250 ml, as is common in Australia and New Zealand, results will be a few percent different. That rarely matters for everyday cooking, but for proportion-sensitive baking it is better to weigh.

Why are the gram figures only approximate?

A cup of flour can differ by ten or twenty grams depending on whether you scoop it directly or fluff it first and level it off. The 120 g in the tool is a common rule of thumb and is no substitute for weighing.

Why is there no general grams-to-millilitres conversion?

Because the relationship depends on the density of each ingredient. Only water is roughly 1 g per ml. The tool instead offers grams-per-cup guidance for seven specific ingredients rather than a universal gram-to-millilitre converter.

Can I use the same cup for liquids and dry ingredients?

The volume conversion is the same, but measuring dry powders by cup is much less accurate than measuring liquids. If a recipe gives grams for dry ingredients, use those.

Privacy and how your data is handled

All conversions are done in your browser with built-in factors. Nothing is looked up online and nothing you type is stored. Refreshing the page returns to the default of 1 cup in millilitres.