How many grams are in a cup of sugar?

Sugar cups to grams: quick conversion table

These are our approximate weights for granulated white sugar, using 198g per US cup and rounding to the nearest gram.

So if your American cookie recipe asks for ½ cup sugar, you can weigh out 99g of granulated sugar. For two cups, use 396g.

These values are for ordinary dry granulated white sugar, measured level rather than heaped. They aren't a conversion for brown sugar, icing sugar or a liquid sweetener.

If your recipe includes its own weights in grams, use those first.

When an American recipe just says 'sugar', what should I buy in the UK?

Usually, ordinary white granulated sugar.

Granulated sugar is the everyday white sugar used in many American baking recipes. You can buy its closest equivalent in an ordinary UK supermarket without searching for a specialist American product.

There are two details worth noticing, though.

First, American recipes often distinguish granulated sugar, light brown sugar and powdered sugar. They're not interchangeable labels. Powdered sugar is what we call icing sugar, while light brown sugar generally means a soft brown sugar.

Second, some UK recipes favour caster sugar for cakes and meringues. That's a finer sugar than ordinary granulated, so you shouldn't assume the two words are just regional names for exactly the same product.

If the American recipe says granulated sugar, buy granulated. If it specifically says superfine sugar or caster sugar, buy UK caster sugar.

Is UK caster sugar the same as American granulated sugar?

No. Caster sugar is finer. Americans may call it superfine sugar, baker's sugar or castor sugar.

Because its crystals are smaller, caster sugar dissolves more readily. That's particularly helpful in things such as meringues, mousses and delicate sponge cakes.

We keep these as separate entries in the Cupstograms converter:

• Granulated white sugar: 198g per US cup.
• Caster (superfine) sugar: 190g per US cup, using King Arthur Baking's Baker's Special Sugar reference.

Those are different published volume-to-weight references. They don't mean caster sugar is less sweet, or that every brand of caster sugar will weigh exactly 190g when you fill a cup.

Can you substitute one for the other? Sometimes, by weight, but the finer or coarser crystals may change the way a mixture comes together or the texture of the finished bake.

For instance, if an American recipe calls for 1 cup granulated sugar, our conversion is 198g. If you decide caster sugar is suitable for that particular recipe, you'd normally use 198g of caster sugar by weight rather than measure out one caster-sugar cup at our separate 190g reference.

For a recipe where sugar is dissolved completely, that choice may be straightforward. For cookies, meringues or cakes where texture is important, follow the recipe author's recommendation if you can.

How much do other sugars weigh per US cup?

This is where a simple search for 1 cup sugar in grams can become misleading.

Here's how the main sugar entries in our converter compare:

The different numbers reflect the ingredient and how it fills the cup. A cup of fluffy icing sugar is not the same as a cup of packed, slightly moist brown sugar.

These aren't instructions to exchange one sugar for another. If a recipe asks for icing sugar in buttercream, don't replace it with 198g of granulated just because that's what your scales say. The texture will be completely different.

For more detail, see our icing sugar cups to grams guide and packed brown sugar cups to grams guide. Both explain the measuring methods and UK equivalents.

Why do some conversion charts say 200g or 201g instead?

Different reference charts use slightly different standard weights or round their answers differently.

Our reference is 198g per US cup, from King Arthur Baking's ingredient weight chart. Other charts may round this to a convenient 200g, and The Calculator Site publishes 201g for a cup of granulated sugar.

That's a small difference for most everyday recipes. It doesn't mean that a US cup is always exactly 198g, 200g or 201g regardless of the sugar or how it's measured.

A cup measures volume. The grams come from the particular ingredient you put in it. Granulated sugar is relatively easy to measure consistently because the crystals pour freely, but cup measurements are still approximate.

We use 198g throughout Cupstograms so that the article, table and calculator agree. As always, when the recipe itself provides grams, follow those.

How do I measure sugar if I don't have US cups?

Use kitchen scales. They're simpler than buying a set of American cups just for one recipe.

1. Put your mixing bowl on the scales and zero the display.
2. Pour in the sugar until you reach the weight you need.
3. For 1 cup granulated sugar, stop at 198g; for ½ cup, stop at 99g.
4. Continue with your recipe.

If you do have an American measuring cup, fill it with granulated sugar and level the top. There's no need to pack ordinary white granulated sugar down the way you would soft brown sugar.

One more little trap: a standard US recipe cup holds about 237ml, while a metric measuring cup may hold 250ml. They aren't quite the same size. Measuring on scales avoids that confusion.

And remember that 237ml is a volume, not the gram weight of the sugar. Our 237ml US cup of granulated sugar is approximately 198g, not 237g.

Does it matter which sugar I use for cakes and cookies?

It can. Sugar does more than add sweetness.

For example, granulated sugar is commonly used in American-style cookies, where its crystal size contributes to the way sugar creams with butter and to the finished texture.

Caster sugar has smaller crystals, which can help it dissolve faster in some cake mixtures and meringues. Icing sugar is a much finer powder, particularly suited to smooth icings and glazes. Soft brown sugar brings a different flavour and moisture to baked goods.

That doesn't mean every substitution will ruin a recipe. It simply means getting the weight right is only half the job: you also want the type of sugar the recipe was designed to use.

For your first attempt at an unfamiliar American bake, we'd stick with the sugar it specifies. If the recipe gives a weight in grams, that's even better.

Where our figures come from

Our 198g-per-US-cup granulated sugar reference comes from King Arthur Baking's ingredient weight chart (opens in a new tab). The same chart supplies our separate 190g caster sugar, 113g unsifted icing sugar and 213g packed brown sugar reference values.

For the practical differences between sugar types, we used:

• King Arthur Baking's guide to sugar types and substitutions (opens in a new tab), explaining granulated, superfine, powdered and brown sugars and how substitutions may affect baking.
• BBC Good Food's sugar glossary (opens in a new tab), explaining the familiar UK names and uses.
• BBC Good Food's cookie tips (opens in a new tab), discussing how white sugar choices affect baking results.

For an example of an alternative published weight, The Calculator Site's cups-to-grams reference (opens in a new tab) lists 201g for one cup of granulated sugar.

For another quantity, open the Cups to Grams converter and choose Granulated white sugar.

The takeaway: for ordinary white granulated sugar, 1 US cup is about 198g and ½ cup is 99g in Cupstograms. Check the kind of sugar your recipe actually asks for, and trust the recipe's own gram weight if it supplies one.