Pancake batter only has a handful of ingredients, but each of them weighs something different per cup. That’s why a pancake recipe written in grams can’t be turned into cups with a single number: 200 g of flour and 200 g of milk end up as two very different cup measurements.
The short answer
Convert each ingredient separately. These are the weights for one 240 ml US cup:
| Ingredient | 1 cup in grams | How it’s measured |
|---|---|---|
| All-purpose flour | 120g | Spooned into the cup and leveled |
| Granulated sugar | 198g | Spooned in and leveled |
| Brown sugar | 220g | Firmly packed |
| Whole milk | 244g | Poured into a liquid measuring cup |
| Butter | 227g | Softened and packed into the cup |
| Vegetable oil | 218g | Poured into a liquid measuring cup |
| Plain yogurt | 245g | Stirred smooth, spooned in and leveled |
| Maple syrup | 315g | Poured into a liquid measuring cup |
Then divide: cups = grams ÷ grams per cup.
A pancake recipe in grams, converted
Here’s a typical batch written by weight, the way most recipes from outside the US give it:
| Ingredient | In the recipe | In US cups |
|---|---|---|
| Flour | 200 g | 1.67 |
| Milk | 300 g | 1.23 |
| Sugar | 25 g | 0.13 |
| Melted butter | 30 g | 0.13 |
| Eggs | 2 | Keep as written |
| Baking powder | 2 tsp | Keep as written |
| Salt | A pinch | Keep as written |
Amounts as small as the sugar and butter here are hard to measure accurately in a measuring cup. Use a tablespoon instead: a level tablespoon of granulated sugar weighs about 12 g, and a tablespoon of butter about 14 g.
Why one conversion for everything gives runny batter
A lot of quick converters treat a cup as one fixed weight, usually the weight of a cup of water. For water that works: 200 g is 0.83 cups. Use the same rate for flour and you’d measure out 0.83 cups when the recipe needs 1.67. The batter still gets all of its milk but not enough flour, so it runs thin and the pancakes spread flat across the pan.
Measuring tips that matter for pancakes
- Flour: spoon and level. Dipping the cup into the bag presses flour down, and that extra flour turns light pancakes thick and bready. How to measure flour walks through the method.
- Milk: grams and milliliters are close. Whole milk is only slightly denser than water, so a 240 ml US cup weighs 244 g. If a recipe gives milk in milliliters instead of grams, you can treat the two numbers as roughly the same.
- Butter: measure it before you melt it. The cup weight above is for softened butter packed into the cup. Weigh the butter or cut it from the stick first, then melt it.
- Baking powder, baking soda and salt: keep the spoons. They go in by the teaspoon, and most kitchen scales only read in 1 g steps, which is too coarse to weigh a teaspoon of baking powder accurately. We don’t publish gram figures for baking powder or baking soda yet. If your recipe lists them in grams, weigh them on a scale that reads to 0.1 g.
- Eggs: count them. Recipes in grams usually still list eggs by number. If one gives an egg weight, crack the eggs into a bowl and weigh them rather than trying to measure them by the cup.
Buttermilk and pancake mix
Buttermilk pancakes and boxed mixes come up a lot, but neither is in our ingredient data yet, so this page doesn’t give a cup weight for them. For a mix, follow the cup amounts printed on the box: brands put different things in their mixes, so no single conversion fits all of them. For buttermilk in a recipe written in grams, weigh it.
Recipes that use metric cups
Recipes from Australia and New Zealand use a 250 ml metric cup, which holds a little more than a US cup. A metric cup of flour weighs about 125 g, and a metric cup of milk about 254.2 g. US cup vs metric cup covers the difference in detail.
Convert your own recipe
Enter the grams, pick the ingredient, and get the cup measurement.
Going the other way, from a US recipe in cups to grams? Use the cups to grams converter.
Frequently asked questions
How many cups is 200 g of flour for pancakes?
200 g of all-purpose flour is 1.67 US cups, spooned into the cup and leveled. Scooping straight from the bag packs in more flour than that.
How many grams is 1 cup of milk?
A 240 ml US cup of whole milk weighs about 244 g. A 250 ml metric cup weighs about 254.2 g.
Can I use these numbers for pancake mix?
No. A pancake mix is flour blended with sugar, leavening and often milk powder, and the blend differs from brand to brand. Use the measurements on the box.
Is it better to weigh pancake ingredients?
For the flour, yes. It's the ingredient most likely to go wrong when measured by the cup, because how you fill the cup changes how much goes in. Milk measures well enough in a liquid measuring cup, and the leaveners are easier with measuring spoons unless your scale reads to 0.1 g.