Cups to grams for sugar: white, brown, powdered and more

One US cup of granulated white sugar weighs 198 grams, about 7 ounces. Packed brown sugar is heavier, at 213 g. Powdered sugar is much lighter, at 113 g, because the fine powder sits loosely in the cup.

So "1 cup of sugar" can mean anything from about 77 g to 220 g depending on which sugar it is. Here are the numbers.

Dry sugars: grams by cup fraction

Weights from the King Arthur Baking ingredient weight chart. Coconut sugar and maple sugar are listed there per 1/2 cup, so we doubled them for the full cup. Fractions are rounded to the nearest gram.

Sugar	1/4 cup	1/3 cup	1/2 cup	2/3 cup	3/4 cup	1 cup
Granulated white	50 g	66 g	99 g	132 g	149 g	198 g
Brown, packed (light or dark)	53 g	71 g	107 g	142 g	160 g	213 g
Confectioners' (powdered), unsifted	28 g	38 g	57 g	75 g	85 g	113 g
Superfine (caster)	48 g	63 g	95 g	127 g	143 g	190 g
Turbinado (raw)	45 g	60 g	90 g	120 g	135 g	180 g
Demerara	55 g	73 g	110 g	147 g	165 g	220 g
Coconut sugar	39 g	51 g	77 g	103 g	116 g	154 g
Maple sugar	39 g	52 g	78 g	104 g	117 g	156 g

In ounces, a cup of granulated sugar is 6.98 oz, packed brown sugar 7.51 oz and powdered sugar 3.99 oz.

Liquid sweeteners

Syrups are dense. A cup of honey weighs far more than a cup of sugar.

Sweetener	1 tbsp	1/4 cup	1/2 cup	1 cup
Honey	21 g	84 g	168 g	336 g
Molasses	21.3 g	85 g	170 g	340 g
Maple syrup	19.5 g	78 g	156 g	312 g
Corn syrup	19.5 g	78 g	156 g	312 g

The chart gives honey per tablespoon (21 g), molasses per 1/4 cup (85 g), maple syrup per 1/2 cup (156 g) and corn syrup per cup (312 g). We scaled each in a straight line. A cup holds 16 tablespoons, following NIST Handbook 44.

Weighing syrups has a practical bonus. Put the bowl on the scale, press tare and pour. Nothing sticks to a measuring cup.

Why brown sugar is "packed"

Brown sugar is moist and clumpy. Loosely spooned, it traps air pockets, so the weight would swing a lot. US recipes solve this by asking you to press it firmly into the cup until it holds its shape when turned out. The 213 g figure assumes that. If the recipe gives grams, use them instead of the cup.

Worked examples

A UK recipe calls for 200 g caster sugar. You have granulated.

• Granulated sugar is 198 g per cup.
• 200 ÷ 198 = 1.01 cups.
• In measuring tools: 1 cup + 1/2 tsp. In practice, 1 cup.

Superfine and granulated are both sucrose. By weight you can swap them. By volume, 1 cup of superfine is 190 g, so you'd get slightly less.

A recipe calls for 250 g brown sugar.

• 250 ÷ 213 = 1.17 cups packed.
• In measuring tools: 1 cup + 2 tbsp + 2 1/4 tsp.

You need 150 g brown sugar.

• 150 ÷ 213 = 0.70 cup.
• That's 2/3 cup + 1 3/4 tsp, packed.

Glaze calls for 50 g powdered sugar.

• 50 ÷ 113 = 0.44 cup.
• That's 1/3 cup + 1 tbsp + 2 1/4 tsp. Or skip the spoons and weigh it.

Swapping sugar for honey

Honey is not a one-to-one swap. It brings liquid to the recipe as well as sweetness, and we haven't found a primary source we trust for a single conversion ratio, so we won't invent one. What we can show is the weight math: a cup of honey is 336 g and a cup of sugar is 198 g, so equal cups are very different amounts of sweetener. Follow a recipe written for honey.

Quick answers

• 1 cup sugar in grams: 198 g.
• 1/2 cup sugar in grams: 99 g.
• 1 cup brown sugar in grams: 213 g, packed.
• 1 cup powdered sugar in grams: 113 g, unsifted.
• 100 g granulated sugar in cups: 1/2 cup + 1/4 tsp, so call it 1/2 cup.

The cups to grams converter has every sugar on this page and shows the measuring cup filling up as you type. To see why weighing is worth it, read why weighing beats measuring cups.