Granulated sugar in grams, and the sugar that isn't

A US cup of granulated sugar weighs 198 grams. Sugar is the easy one: it pours the same for everyone, so the charts nearly agree and packing barely matters. The catch is not the number, it is the word. A recipe from Japan that says sugar means a different sugar, and it weighs a third less.

How much a cup of sugar weighs

Granulated sugar is the control ingredient for this whole site. Where a cup of flour swings 40 grams with your hand and the metric cup splits countries apart, sugar crystals do not compact and do not soak up water, so every authority lands in the same place.

A 2 gram gap, against the 40 grams flour can move. We publish 198 g, the King Arthur figure, and the reason we bother to name both when they are this close is the same reason we name them when they are far apart, set out on the methodology page.

Sugar conversions in full

Density used: 0.84 g per ml.

The Japanese sugar that weighs a third less

When a Japanese recipe writes sugar, it means johakuto, a soft fine sugar dosed with a little invert syrup that is barely sold outside Japan. It is lighter in the cup than the granulated sugar a Western baker reaches for. The Japanese standard tables put johakuto at about 130 grams for their 200 millilitre cup, where the same cup of granulated sugar is 180 grams.

Follow a Japanese cake recipe with a US cup of granulated sugar and two errors stack: the American cup is larger than the Japanese one, and granulated is heavier than the johakuto the recipe assumed. The sugar can land a third over what the baker intended, which browns and sweetens a castella or a chiffon past where it should. Weigh johakuto by mass and use fine granulated in its place, rather than matching it cup for cup.

Sugar by the metric cup, and caster versus granulated

Outside the US the cup is 250 millilitres, and the Australian and New Zealand charts put a cup of white sugar between 210 and 225 grams. The spread is narrow because, again, sugar does not compact. Japan's 200 millilitre cup of granulated is 180 grams, from its standard tables rather than from scaling the US figure. Brazil is the loud exception: its xicara charts scatter sugar from 130 to 200 grams, which Brazilian recipe measurements traces to unnamed sugar types rather than to the crystal itself.

Caster sugar is the same crystal ground finer, so it packs a touch heavier per cup than granulated, though the difference is small. Icing and brown sugar are the ones that move: brown sugar swings 75 grams between packed and loose, which is why it has its own page.

The other sugars in your cupboard

A cup only means one weight once you know which sugar fills it. Caster is granulated ground finer, close enough in the cup that you can read it off the table above. The two that break from granulated are the ones that trap water or crush down.

Powdered sugar is granulated crushed to dust and cut with a little cornstarch, so a cup holds far less solid sugar and drops again once you sift it. Brown sugar is granulated with the molasses left in, sticky enough to hold the shape of the cup, so its weight depends entirely on how hard you press. Each earns its own page: the powdered sugar conversions cover the sifted-versus-unsifted gap, and the brown sugar conversions cover packed against loose.

Questions about sugar weight

How many grams is a cup of granulated sugar?

198 g by King Arthur, 200 by the USDA, close enough that sugar is the one ingredient where the charts barely argue. We publish 198 g.

Does a Japanese recipe mean the same sugar?

No. Japanese recipes assume johakuto, a moist fine sugar that weighs about 130 g per their 200 ml cup, where granulated is 180. Measure johakuto by volume with granulated and you overshoot the sugar by roughly a third.

Is caster sugar the same weight as granulated?

Close. Caster is granulated ground finer, so a cup weighs a little more, but the gap is small next to the third you lose measuring brown sugar loose instead of packed.

Sugar also sits in the Roskachestvo spoon grid, where a level tablespoon and a heaped one differ by nearly double: see heaped versus level spoons. The johakutou trap in full context sits on Japanese recipe measurements.

Sources

King Arthur Baking ingredient weight chart for the 198 g cup, USDA FoodData Central SR Legacy for the 200 g cup and the teaspoon. The Kagawa Nutrition University standard tables, as reproduced by Benricho, for the 180 g granulated and the 130 g johakuto cup. Edmonds, Chelsea and Healthy Food Guide for the metric cup. Full citations on the sources page.