How Many Grams Are in a Cup of Flour?

The short answer

A US cup of all-purpose flour is most often given as about 120 g. That figure assumes the flour is spooned lightly into the cup and leveled off. It is the weight used by this converter, and it sits in the middle of the range found in published charts.

Other sources list higher or lower values for the same cup, and the gap usually comes from how the cup was filled: a lightly spooned cup weighs less than one scooped straight from the bag.

Why charts disagree

Flour is a fine powder with a lot of air between the particles. When it sits in a bag it settles. When you dip a cup into it you compress it, and the cup fills with more flour than if you spooned it in loosely. Scooping can add 20 g or more per cup, which is a sixth of the weight or more.

Chart makers also pick different baselines. Some measure after sifting, some weigh a spooned cup, and some average several people’s scoops. None of them is wrong; they are answering slightly different questions. That is why charts differ, and why a gram weight in a recipe is more trustworthy than a converted one.

Worked examples with 120 g per cup

Using 120 g per US cup, common amounts work out as follows:

• ¼ cup = 30 g
• ⅓ cup = 40 g
• ½ cup = 60 g
• ¾ cup = 90 g
• 1 cup = 120 g
• 2 cups = 240 g
• 2½ cups = 300 g
• 3 cups = 360 g

To go in reverse, divide by 120. A recipe that calls for 500 g of flour needs 500 ÷ 120, or about 4.17 cups, which in practice is a little over 4⅛ cups. That awkward fraction is a good reason to weigh.

These numbers are straightforward to scale. A quarter cup is 30 g, so 2 tablespoons come to about 15 g, since 16 US tablespoons make a cup and each holds around 7.5 g of flour.

Metric cups hold more

A metric cup is 250 mL, while a US cup is 236.588 mL, so a metric cup is about 5.7 percent larger. A metric cup of the same flour comes to about 120 × 250 ÷ 236.588, or roughly 127 g.

If a recipe from Australia, New Zealand or another metric-cup country asks for 2 cups of flour, that is about 254 g rather than 240 g. The 14 g gap is small in a loaf but can matter in a delicate cake, so check which cup the recipe means.

Other flours are not the same

The 120 g figure is for all-purpose flour. Other flours have different densities, and a weight for one should not be reused for another. Almond flour, for example, is lighter in this converter’s data at 96 g per US cup, and cocoa powder is lighter still at 84 g. Whole-grain, bread, cake and gluten-free flours each have their own typical weights, and charts disagree about them as well.

If a recipe names a specific flour and gives weights in grams, follow those. If you only have cups, look for a figure for that exact flour rather than defaulting to 120 g.

Rolled oats, which are not flour but are often measured alongside it, weigh 89 g per cup in the same data. A cup is only a container, and what goes into it decides the weight.

How to get a repeatable cup

If you must measure flour by volume, be consistent. Fluff the flour in its container with a fork or spoon, spoon it into the cup without pressing, and sweep the top level with a straight edge. Never tap or shake the cup to settle it. Doing this every time keeps your cup close to the 120 g typical of a spooned cup.

Better still, weigh it: place a bowl on a scale, set the display to zero, and add flour until you reach the target. You get the same amount every time, with one less dish to wash.

When a few grams matter

For cookies, pancakes, crumbles and most sauces, a variation of 10 g in a cup of flour will hardly show. In bread, the extra flour makes dough stiffer and loaves denser. In cakes and sponges, it can make the crumb dry and tight. When a recipe feels too dry or stiff, too much flour is a common cause.

A cooking converter such as this one gives a fast starting figure, shown to three significant digits and labeled as approximate. Round it sensibly, and adjust by feel if the dough or batter looks wrong.

If you are unsure which way a recipe was written, check whether it lists gram weights alongside the cups. A recipe that gives both lets you work out the weight per cup the author used, for example 150 g for a cup, and then convert the rest of the recipe using that figure. This is the most reliable way to match the author’s intent.