Brown Sugar Cups to Grams
Brown sugar is normally packed firmly in recipes, so this reference is specifically for a packed US cup.
Reference measurement
213 grams per US cup
Pack firmly into a dry US cup and level.
King Arthur Baking lists 1 packed cup of light or dark brown sugar as 213 g. Source note
This value is for packed brown sugar, as recipes usually specify.
Common Brown Sugar measurements
| US cups | Grams |
|---|---|
| 0.25 US cups | 53.25 grams |
| 0.333 US cups | 71 grams |
| 0.5 US cups | 106.5 grams |
| 0.667 US cups | 142 grams |
| 0.75 US cups | 159.8 grams |
| 1 US cup | 213 grams |
| 1.5 US cups | 319.5 grams |
| 2 US cups | 426 grams |
Practical examples
- 1/2 US cup = 106.5 grams.
- 1 US tablespoon = 13.31 grams.
- 3 US teaspoons = 13.31 grams.
Measuring note
Pack firmly into a dry US cup and level.
This value is for packed brown sugar, as recipes usually specify.
What a packed cup actually means
The 213 g per US cup reference is for packed light or dark brown sugar in King Arthur Baking's chart. Fill a dry measuring cup, press the sugar firmly and level it. The common practical cue is a packed portion that retains the cup's shape when turned out; that cue is a method description, not a laboratory density guarantee.
At this reference ¾ packed cup corresponds to 159.75 g, or about 160 g. An unpressed, loosely filled cup cannot be assumed to have the same mass, and we do not assign a made-up universal loose-cup weight.
If the recipe says light, dark, or loose
Light and dark brown sugar share a packed 213 g-per-cup entry in the named chart, but that does not mean the sugars always produce identical flavor or texture. If the recipe explicitly instructs a loose or lightly packed cup, follow that instruction and seek the author's weight if available instead of using the packed result without qualification.
This page is not a replacement for white granulated sugar: the latter has a 198 g per cup reference and is leveled, not packed. When copying a recipe into metric, preserve the adjective packed beside the gram figure so the method is not lost.