Brown Sugar: Cups to Grams
The one ingredient where "a cup" officially means "a cup, pressed down hard".
Brown sugar conversion table
| Cups | Grams | Ounces |
|---|
What "packed" actually means
Brown sugar is white sugar coated in molasses, which makes it moist, soft and clumpy. Scooped loosely into a cup, it traps big, random pockets of air — measure it three times and you'd get three different weights. The fix, standardised in recipes and on the King Arthur chart, is to pack it: spoon the sugar in, press down firmly with the back of the spoon, keep adding and pressing until the cup is full and level. Packed properly, the sugar holds the cup's shape when turned out — and weighs a consistent 213 g per cup.
That is also why this page does not publish a weight for a loose cup of brown sugar: there isn't a reliable one to publish. If your recipe just says "brown sugar" without "packed", pack it — that is the convention the published weights are built on.
Light vs. dark, and brown vs. white
| Sugar | Grams per US cup |
|---|---|
| Brown sugar, light (packed) | 213 g |
| Brown sugar, dark (packed) | 213 g |
| Granulated white sugar | 198 g |
Source: King Arthur Baking Ingredient Weight Chart, which lists brown sugar as a single entry: "dark or light, packed", 213 g.
Dark brown sugar tastes stronger because it carries more molasses — but since the chart weighs light and dark identically, swapping one for the other changes flavour and colour, not sweetness by weight. Swapping brown for white is different: packed brown runs 15 g heavier per cup than granulated (213 g vs. 198 g), so swap gram for gram, not cup for cup, when precision matters.
Frequently asked questions
Do light and dark brown sugar weigh the same?
Yes. The King Arthur Baking chart lists one entry — "Brown sugar (dark or light, packed)" — at 213 g per cup for both. Dark brown sugar has more molasses and a stronger flavour, but packed into a cup it weighs the same as light.
Why is brown sugar always measured packed?
Because brown sugar is moist and clumpy from its molasses coating. A loose cup traps large, random air pockets, so its weight would change every time you measured it. Pressing it firmly into the cup squeezes the air out and gives a repeatable 213 g per cup.
My brown sugar has gone hard. Can I still use it?
Yes — hard brown sugar has lost moisture, not sweetness. Break it up as best you can and weigh it: the target is still 213 g per packed cup. Weighing sidesteps the problem entirely, because lumps change the volume but not the weight you need.
Can I substitute white sugar for brown sugar?
By weight, yes — swap gram for gram and the sweetness is the same; you will lose the molasses flavour and some moisture. By the cup, note the weights differ: a packed cup of brown sugar is 213 g while a cup of granulated white sugar is 198 g, so a straight cup-for-cup swap adds about 15 g more sugar per cup.
How do I pack brown sugar correctly?
Spoon the sugar into the cup and press it down firmly with the back of the spoon, adding more and pressing again until the cup is full. It is packed enough when the sugar holds the shape of the cup and comes out as a solid mould when you turn it into the bowl.
Data source: King Arthur Baking Ingredient Weight Chart (grams per US customary cup, 236.588 mL; other cup sizes scaled by volume ratio).