International recipes use cups and spoons. Learn how to convert them to grams and milliliters.
A standard US cup equals approximately 240 ml — more precisely 236.6 ml. In Brazil, however, many recipes use cups of 200 ml or 250 ml, depending on the region and the recipe author, which creates variation that can compromise the result in sensitive preparations. When following an international recipe, always check which cup standard it uses: the difference between 200 ml and 240 ml may seem small, but in a cake recipe it represents a significant change in the liquid ratio.
The tablespoon equals approximately 15 ml in the US standard, and the teaspoon approximately 5 ml — more precisely 14.79 ml and 4.93 ml, respectively. In Brazil, the household tablespoon is usually measured as 15 ml and the teaspoon as 5 ml, values that match the rounded US standard. The relationship between them is fixed: 1 tablespoon = 3 teaspoons, and 1 cup = 16 tablespoons.
For dry ingredients, converting cups and spoons to grams depends on the density of the ingredient — and this is where the biggest source of kitchen error lies. One cup of wheat flour weighs about 120 to 130 grams, but one cup of granulated sugar weighs about 200 grams, and one cup of honey weighs about 340 grams. There is no universal conversion from "1 cup" to grams: the value changes completely depending on the ingredient.
For this reason, in professional pastry and baking, the most reliable standard is to measure dry ingredients in grams, using a scale, rather than cups and spoons. Weighing eliminates the ambiguity of density and of how the ingredient is placed in the cup (sifted, packed, or loose makes a big difference). Recipes for bread, macarons, and leavened doughs, which require precision, adopt grams as the standard precisely for this reason.
For liquids, conversion is more straightforward, since both cups and milliliters are volume units: 1 US cup ≈ 236.6 ml, 1 tablespoon ≈ 14.79 ml, and 1 teaspoon ≈ 4.93 ml. It is worth noting that the metric cup used in some countries (250 ml) is different from the US cup, which can create small variations if the recipe does not specify which standard it uses. In liquid recipes, this difference is usually less critical than with dry ingredients.
When adapting an international recipe, the safest approach is always to check whether it specifies weight in grams for dry ingredients (many online recipes already offer this option). When that is not available, a kitchen scale combined with an ingredient density table is more reliable than assuming a fixed volume-to-weight conversion. For everyday recipes, such as a simple cake, the variation between cup standards rarely ruins the result; in precision pastry, however, it makes all the difference.
The TudoConversor volume converter helps convert between cups, spoons, milliliters, liters, and other volume units with double precision, using official factors. For dry ingredients, remember that converting volume to weight requires knowing the specific density of the ingredient — and that, when precision matters, a scale is always the most reliable choice.
The teaspoon, although it seems like an imprecise household measure, was standardized internationally at 4.93 ml in the US system and 5 ml in the metric system adopted by many countries. This standardization is important because in baking and confectionery recipes, small variations in baking powder or salt significantly affect the result — 1 extra teaspoon of baking powder can make a cake rise too much and collapse. For this reason, professional recipes specify "level" spoons, and standardized spoon measurers are more reliable than common table spoons, whose volume varies by manufacturer.
The US fluid ounce equals 29.57 ml, while the British imperial fluid ounce equals 28.41 ml — a small difference, but enough to alter recipes for drinks and sauces in exact proportions. American recipes frequently use fluid ounces for small liquid amounts, while European recipes prefer milliliters. Confusing the fluid ounce (volume) with the avoirdupois ounce (weight, 28.35 g) is another common error: both are called "ounce" in English, but they measure different quantities, and using one for the other generates systematic errors in adapted recipes.