ReduceImperial vs Metric in Cooking: The Easy Conversion Guide
By Reduce5 min read
The recipe says one cup. You own a scale. Now what?
Why kitchen measurements are a mess
The United States cooks in cups, tablespoons and ounces; most of the world cooks in grams and millilitres; and plenty of recipes mix the two inside a single ingredient list.
The worst of it: a cup is not one thing. A US cup is 236 ml, an Australian cup 250 ml, a Japanese cup 200 ml. A recipe that says “1 cup” without saying whose is already asking you to guess.
The conversions worth memorising
| Imperial | Metric |
|---|---|
| 1 cup | 240 ml |
| 1 tablespoon | 15 ml |
| 1 teaspoon | 5 ml |
| 1 oz (weight) | 28 g |
| 1 fl oz | 30 ml |
| 1 lb | 454 g |
| 350°F | 175°C |
| 400°F | 200°C |
Converting by hand is the wrong moment
The problem is never the arithmetic, it is when the arithmetic is due: hands covered in flour, a timer running, and a search for how many grams are in three quarters of a cup of butter. By the time you have an answer, something has caught.
Let the recipe carry both
Reduce converts every measurement in a recipe on a single tap, in the ingredient list and inside the steps, which is where you actually read them. Paste a link from anywhere and you get a clean version that speaks both systems.
While you are here: weigh things
If you want the same result twice, use a scale. Weight is exact where volume is not. A cup of flour varies by roughly a third depending on whether you scooped or spooned it. That precision, not habit, is why professional bakers work in grams.