Baking with cups: how to measure and convert to grams

For cakes measured in cups, the exact size of the cup matters less than measuring all the ingredients with the same cup. The ratio of flour, sugar, and liquids then stays the same as in the recipe—a larger cup simply gives you more batter.

The exceptions are ingredients that are not measured in cups: eggs, baking powder, vanilla sugar, and a pinch of salt. Their amounts are fixed in the recipe, so your cup should not be much larger or smaller than the one the recipe uses.

Our recipes use a 250 ml cup; both Slovak words for cup, hrnček and šálka, mean the same measurement in our recipes. To check your cup's capacity, fill it to the brim with water, then pour the water into a measuring cup.

A plain, straight-sided cup works best because dry ingredients are easy to level off. If your cup holds 300 ml, for example, you will have about one-fifth more batter. Bake the cake in a larger pan—use the baking pan conversion calculator to work out how much larger it should be.

• Flour: Spoon it into the cup and level it off with the back of a knife. Do not pack it down or scoop it directly from the bag with the cup—this compacts the flour, so the cup holds more than the recipe calls for.
• Sugar: Simply pour it in and level it off. Measure powdered sugar the same way as flour.
• Poppy seeds, nuts, and coconut: Pour them in loosely without pressing them down.
• Milk, yogurt, and oil: Fill the cup to the brim or to the same line you used for the other ingredients.
• Measure dry ingredients first, then liquids—you will not need to wash or dry the cup between ingredients.

A cup measures volume, so a cup of one ingredient weighs a different amount than a cup of another. For a 250 ml cup, we use these weights:

• All-purpose flour 140 g, Slovak semi-coarse flour 145 g
• Granulated sugar 211 g, superfine sugar 210 g, powdered sugar 127 g
• Milk 258 g, plain yogurt 255 g, kefir 256 g
• Oil 230 g
• Ground poppy seeds 125 g, ground nuts 90 g, cocoa powder 90 g, shredded coconut 80 g

Find more ingredients, along with tablespoon and deciliter measurements, in the kitchen measurement conversion guide. These are average values—the same cup of flour can weigh a few grams more or less depending on how you fill it.

Converting a cup-based recipe to grams makes it easier to scale up or down and bake consistently. Simply multiply the number of cups by the weight of one cup of that ingredient. For example, for this cup-measured poppy seed bublanina, a Slovak fruit cake:

• 1 cup ground poppy seeds = 125 g
• 1.5 cups Slovak semi-coarse flour = about 220 g
• 1 cup superfine sugar = 210 g
• 1 cup milk = 250 ml (258 g)
• 0.5 cup oil = 115 g

Keep eggs listed by number and baking powder by packet. If you want to make the cake in a larger baking pan, multiply every ingredient by the same factor—including the eggs, then round them to a whole number.

Most of our cup-measured cakes bake at 180 °C (350 °F) for about 25–40 minutes. Preheat the oven and do not open it for the first 20 minutes, so the cake does not sink. Test for doneness with a skewer: insert it into the center of the cake. When it comes out dry, without sticky batter, the cake is done.

• Cup-measured chocolate cake with hazelnuts
• Cup-measured poppy seed cake with mineral water and strawberry jam
• Cup-measured eggless coconut cake with yogurt
• Cup-measured kefir bábovka, a Slovak Bundt cake with raisins
• Cup-measured poppy seed bublanina, a Slovak fruit sheet cake

For help with older recipes that use decagrams or a pinch alongside cups, see Measurements in old recipes: decagrams, cups, tablespoons, and pinches.