Convert granulated, packed brown, and powdered (icing) sugar between grams, cups and tablespoons. Each sugar type packs to a different weight, so pick the right one before converting.
| Cups | Granulated | Brown (packed) | Powdered |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1/4 cup | 50 g | 55 g | 30 g |
| 1/2 cup | 100 g | 110 g | 60 g |
| 3/4 cup | 150 g | 165 g | 90 g |
| 1 cup | 200 g | 220 g | 120 g |
| 2 cups | 400 g | 440 g | 240 g |
Not all sugars are the same density, and the difference is bigger than most home bakers expect. Granulated white sugar has fairly uniform, medium-sized crystals that settle into a measuring cup at around 200 grams per cup. Brown sugar behaves completely differently: its crystals are coated in molasses, which makes them clump and stick together, so recipes almost always call for it "packed" — pressed firmly into the cup with a spoon until it holds the cup's shape when tipped out. Packed brown sugar comes in noticeably heavier, around 220 grams per cup, because there's less air between the sticky crystals. Powdered sugar (also called icing or confectioner's sugar) is the opposite extreme: it's sugar ground to a fine powder and mixed with a small amount of cornstarch to prevent clumping, so it traps a lot of air and weighs only around 120 grams per cup, roughly half of granulated sugar for the same volume.
This matters most when converting a recipe rather than just following one as written. If a US recipe calls for "1 cup packed brown sugar" and you measure that by scooping loose, un-packed brown sugar instead, you could end up with 30–40 grams less sugar than intended — enough to throw off both sweetness and the moisture balance of a batter, since brown sugar's molasses content also adds liquid. Converting by weight sidesteps the packing problem entirely, which is the main reason this calculator (and most professional bakers) default to grams whenever precision matters.
Caster sugar, common in UK and Australian recipes, is simply granulated sugar ground to a finer crystal size; it measures almost identically to granulated sugar by volume and weight, so the same 200 g/cup figure applies.
If a Thai recipe calls for palm sugar rather than one of the sugars above, don't substitute this converter's figures for it — palm sugar is a completely different, far less consistent ingredient (its density can range 150–220 g/cup depending on whether it's a chopped block or finely ground). Use the dedicated Palm Sugar Converter instead.