Worked Cooking Conversion Examples

Step-by-step examples for flour, sugar, recipe servings, temperature and butter.

Example 1: One and a half cups of flour

Using the reference of 120 grams per US cup for spooned and leveled all-purpose flour, multiply 1.5 by 120 to obtain approximately 180 grams. If your recipe author specifies a different weight for one cup, use the author’s value instead. A tightly scooped cup may produce noticeably more flour.

Example 2: Convert ¾ cup to tablespoons

A US cup contains 16 US tablespoons. Multiply 0.75 by 16 to get 12 tablespoons. This works for any ingredient when the question is volume-to-volume. It does not mean that 12 tablespoons of sugar and 12 tablespoons of flour weigh the same.

Example 3: Convert 350°F to Celsius

Subtract 32 from 350 to get 318. Multiply by five ninths to get approximately 176.7°C. An oven may offer 175°C or 180°C instead. Use the setting appropriate to the recipe and oven, and monitor the food rather than relying on a converted number alone.

Example 4: Scale four servings to six

Divide desired servings by original servings: 6 ÷ 4 = 1.5. Multiply each ingredient by 1.5. Two cups of broth become three cups, and one tablespoon of oil becomes one and a half tablespoons. Cooking time and vessel size still need separate consideration.

Example 5: Convert butter sticks to grams

One US butter stick is conventionally four ounces by weight, approximately 113.4 grams. Two sticks are about 226.8 grams. Packaging outside the United States may use different stick sizes or no sticks at all; check the label when using imported butter.

Example 6: Why honey and flour differ

A cup of honey is substantially heavier than a cup of flour because its density is higher. Replacing one cup of flour with the same number of grams of honey is not a valid recipe substitution. Our ingredient converter selects a separate reference for each item, but it does not determine whether ingredients are interchangeable.