Published July 28, 2026
Common Cooking and Baking Unit Conversions
Recipes from different countries — or different eras — tend to use wildly different measurement systems. American recipes lean on cups and tablespoons, British recipes often mix imperial and metric, and most of the rest of the world bakes by weight in grams. Here's a practical reference for converting between them, plus why weight-based baking tends to be more reliable.
Volume conversions for the kitchen
| US unit | Metric equivalent |
|---|---|
| 1 teaspoon (tsp) | 4.93 mL |
| 1 tablespoon (tbsp) | 14.79 mL |
| 1 fluid ounce | 29.57 mL |
| 1 cup | 236.6 mL |
| 1 pint | 473.2 mL |
| 1 quart | 0.946 L |
| 1 gallon | 3.785 L |
Note that 3 teaspoons make up 1 tablespoon, and 16 tablespoons make up 1 cup — worth remembering when you need to scale a recipe up or down.
Why weight is more reliable than volume for baking
A cup of flour can weigh anywhere from about 120 to 150 grams depending on how it's scooped and packed, which is a meaningful difference in a recipe that depends on precise ratios, like bread or pastry. That's why many baking recipes — especially those from outside the US — specify ingredients by weight (grams) rather than volume (cups). If you bake often, a kitchen scale removes this variability entirely.
Approximate weight conversions for common ingredients
| Ingredient | 1 cup ≈ |
|---|---|
| All-purpose flour | 120–125 g |
| Granulated sugar | 200 g |
| Butter | 227 g |
| Brown sugar (packed) | 220 g |
| Uncooked rice | 185–200 g |
These figures are approximate since ingredient density varies, but they're a solid starting point when adapting a US recipe to metric weight.
Oven temperatures
Oven temperature is one of the most common places American and international recipes diverge — US ovens are usually set in Fahrenheit, while most of the world uses Celsius (and UK recipes sometimes list Gas Mark as well).
| Fahrenheit | Celsius | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 325°F | 163°C | Low/slow bake |
| 350°F | 177°C | Standard bake |
| 400°F | 204°C | Hot oven |
| 425°F | 218°C | Roasting |
For the exact math behind these conversions, see our guide on converting Celsius and Fahrenheit.
Scaling a recipe up or down
When doubling or halving a recipe, volume measurements scale in a straightforward, linear way — 2 cups doubled is simply 4 cups. But be careful with conversions layered on top of scaling: if a recipe calls for 1.5 cups of flour and you're doubling it, convert to 3 cups first, then to grams if needed, rather than converting the original 1.5 cups to grams and doubling that figure. Both approaches give the same answer mathematically, but doing the scaling in the recipe's native unit first reduces the chance of a rounding mistake creeping in.
Small measurement conversions that trip people up
A few conversions are common sources of kitchen mistakes because the units sound similar but aren't interchangeable: a fluid ounce (volume) is not the same as an ounce (weight) — an ounce of water happens to weigh close to a fluid ounce, but an ounce of flour or sugar does not occupy the same volume as an ounce of water. Similarly, a "pint" in US recipes (473 mL) differs from a UK imperial pint (568 mL), which matters if you're working from a British cookbook. When in doubt, check whether a recipe specifies US or metric/imperial units before converting.
Metric countries and recipe scaling
Recipes from metric countries typically list both dry and liquid ingredients by weight in grams, using a kitchen scale rather than measuring cups. This approach removes the ambiguity of how tightly an ingredient is packed into a cup, which is why professional bakeries and serious home bakers often bake by weight even in countries where cups are the everyday standard. If you frequently adapt recipes between systems, investing in a scale that toggles between grams and ounces removes most of the guesswork described above.
Convert any recipe measurement instantly
Rather than eyeballing a conversion or hunting for a chart, use our unit converter for exact volume and weight conversions — just select the Volume or Weight category, pick your units, and get a precise answer as you type.