The Complete Guide to Cooking Measurement Conversions

American recipes use cups. European recipes use grams. British recipes use a combination of both plus stones, pounds and sometimes archaic spoon measurements. Here's how to convert confidently between all of them.

The fundamental problem with cooking measurements is that volume and weight are not the same thing, and different ingredients have different densities. One cup of flour weighs roughly 120-130 grams. One cup of sugar weighs around 200 grams. One cup of water weighs exactly 240 grams. This means that converting a volume measurement to a weight measurement requires knowing what you're measuring.

The most reliable approach to cooking conversions is to use weight (grams or ounces) wherever possible. Weight measurements are unambiguous — a gram is a gram, regardless of how loosely or tightly you've packed a cup. Professional bakers virtually always use weight for this reason, and most good modern cookbooks include weight measurements alongside volume.

For liquid measurements, the conversions are more straightforward since liquids are consistent in density. One US cup = 240ml = 16 tablespoons = 8 fluid ounces. One tablespoon = 3 teaspoons = 15ml. One fluid ounce = 2 tablespoons = 30ml. UK and US measures differ: a UK tablespoon is 17.7ml, slightly larger than the US standard of 14.8ml — a small difference that rarely matters in practice unless you're scaling up a recipe significantly.

Oven temperatures are a particular source of confusion in international recipes. British recipes traditionally use Gas Marks (Gas Mark 4 = 180°C = 350°F), while American recipes use Fahrenheit and European recipes use Celsius. The key temperatures to remember: 160°C (320°F) is a slow oven for casseroles, 180°C (350°F) is a moderate oven for cakes, 200°C (390°F) is a hot oven for roasting, and 220°C (430°F) is very hot for bread and pizza.