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Sugar Types Weight Chart: Grams per Cup for Every Sugar
Swapping « a cup of sugar » between recipes only works if the sugars match — a cup of powdered sugar weighs barely more than half a cup of packed brown. Here is what each type actually weighs.
Seven sugars, five different weights
Crystal size and moisture decide the weight. Fine sugars — granulated and caster — settle around 0.85 g/ml; moist brown and muscovado pack to 0.9 and beyond; coarser coconut sugar stays airy at 0.76; powdered sugar, cut with starch, drops to 0.53 — barely denser than flour.
The chart: grams per cup, by sugar
Level US cup (236.6 ml), brown sugar packed — the convention our converters use. The metric cup column (250 ml) rescales the same densities ×250.
- Granulated sugar: 200 g per US cup · 211 g metric
- Caster sugar: 201 g · 213 g
- Brown sugar (packed): 220 g · 233 g
- Muscovado sugar: 213 g · 225 g
- Demerara sugar: 201 g · 213 g
- Coconut sugar: 180 g · 190 g
- Powdered sugar: 125 g · 133 g
Liquid sweeteners play in another league
Honey is the heaviest pantry staple: 336 g per US cup, 21.0 g per tablespoon. Molasses follows at 329 g per cup (20.6 g per spoon), maple syrup at 315 g (19.7 g). A recipe calling for « 1 cup honey » asks for two-thirds more weight than the same cup of granulated sugar — and swapping dry sugar for liquid changes the batter's hydration too, not just its sweetness.
Packed, scooped, sifted: brown and powdered need a convention
« Packed » means pressed until the cup holds its shape — the only way brown sugar measures repeatably, within ±7 %. Scooped without pressing, it under-fills. Powdered sugar swings the other way: sifted it fills with air below the chart figure, compacted it overshoots — its ±8 % band is why pastry recipes increasingly weigh in grams.
Weight is the only safe unit for swapping sugars
By weight, granulated and caster trade gram for gram — only crystal size changes. By volume they stay close too (200 g versus 201 g), but once brown or powdered enters the recipe, cup-for-cup swaps distort everything: 200 g of powdered sugar makes 1.6 loose cups, not one. Weigh the sugar the recipe specifies; if it only says « 1 cup », assume granulated at 200 g unless the texture suggests otherwise.
The converter knows all seven
Every sugar in the chart has its own converter — cups to grams, tablespoons, ounces — applying exactly these densities, plus honey, molasses and maple syrup on the liquid side. For a fraction outside the chart (⅓ cup muscovado, 1.75 cups powdered), the ingredient pages compute it directly.