Lesson 1 of 5 · Baking Basics: Your First Bakes

Measuring ingredients by weight

  • Free video
  • Beginner
  • Baking Fundamentals
  • 8 min
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Video by Baking Nicky on YouTube: “How many grams are in one cup? | Baking conversion 101 Episode 1” Watch on YouTube ↗

What you'll learn

Lesson 1 of 5

Why bakers weigh instead of scooping, how to use a kitchen scale, and the cup-to-gram conversions for the ingredients you use most.

  • A scooped cup of flour can weigh 20% more than a spooned one
  • Use the tare button to weigh everything into one bowl
  • Convert any recipe with a handful of standard weights

Ingredients for this lesson

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Lesson notes from VanillaGoods

Why weight beats volume

How you fill a cup changes how much flour goes in. Spooned and leveled, a cup of all-purpose flour weighs about 120–125 g; scooped straight from the bag it can reach 140–150 g, enough to turn a tender cake dry. A scale gives you the same amount every time.

Conversions worth memorizing

  • All-purpose flour: about 120–125 g per cup
  • Granulated sugar: 200 g per cup
  • Packed brown sugar: about 213–220 g per cup
  • Butter: 227 g per cup (113 g per stick)
  • Water or milk: about 240 g per cup

How to weigh

  • Set the bowl on the scale and press tare to zero it
  • Add the first ingredient, tare again, add the next
  • Small amounts like baking soda, salt and vanilla are still best measured with spoons
Next: Creaming butter and sugar →

Tools for this lesson

The equipment that makes this easier. VanillaGoods vanilla is always our own; these tools are from Amazon.

As an Amazon Associate, VanillaGoods earns from qualifying purchases. We only suggest tools that fit what you're learning.

Put it into practice

Bake along with a VanillaGoods recipe that uses this technique.

Find vanilla cake recipes

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