Milk: Cups to Grams
The King Arthur chart puts a cup of milk at 227 g — lighter than this site's cup of water, which surprises people. Here is why the page prints it that way.
Milk conversion table
| Cups | Grams | Ounces |
|---|
Why this page says 227 g
The King Arthur Baking Ingredient Weight Chart lists "Milk (fresh)" at 227 g per cup, and this site follows that chart end-to-end for consistency — the same reason the flour page uses King Arthur's 120 g rather than the USDA's 125 g. It does mean milk sits oddly next to this site's water figure: water is the one ingredient converted from the USDA (237 g), because King Arthur's 227 g for water is a rounded convention rather than a measurement. So on this site, a cup of milk (227 g) prints lighter than a cup of water (237 g) — not because milk floats, but because the two figures come from two different published charts that were built with different conventions. Both numbers are shown with their sources so you can choose the chart your recipe came from.
In practice the gap rarely changes a bake: milk is a minor fraction of most doughs and batters, and 10 g either way disappears into the flour. Where it does matter is consistency — if you convert a whole recipe book with one chart, cakes come out the same every time, which is the entire point of keeping one chart per site.
Measuring milk well
Milk is measured like water: a clear jug on a level surface, read at eye level at the bottom of the meniscus. The trap specific to milk is foam — a vigorous pour froths the surface, and a frothy jug reads higher than the milk in it. Pour gently, let it settle for a few seconds, then read. For anything beyond a splash, weighing is easier: milk goes straight into the mixing bowl on the scale, and the converter above flips to grams-to-cups when a recipe gives cups but your jug is a scale.
The chart's neighbours are in the dropdown because they swap constantly in real kitchens: buttermilk is also 227 g per cup, and heavy cream is charted at 227 g as well. That cluster of identical figures makes the dairy corner of baking forgiving — swap milk and buttermilk cup-for-cup and the weights stay where the recipe put them, even though the tang doesn't.
Frequently asked questions
How many grams is 1 cup of milk?
227 grams on the King Arthur Baking Ingredient Weight Chart, which is the chart this site follows for milk. Some other charts print higher figures; both approaches exist because publishers use different conventions.
Why is milk listed lighter than water here? Milk should be denser.
Because the two numbers come from different published charts: water uses the USDA's measured 237 g, while milk uses King Arthur's 227 g chart figure. The site shows each value with its source rather than silently blending charts.
Is a cup of buttermilk the same weight as a cup of milk?
On the King Arthur chart, yes — both are listed at 227 g per cup, as is heavy cream. Cup-for-cup swaps among them keep the recipe's weights unchanged.
How many grams is half a cup of milk?
About 114 g — half of the chart's 227 g per cup. The conversion table on this page lists the standard fractions worked out the same way.
Related pages
- Water: cups to grams — the USDA 237 g figure this page is compared against
- Yogurt: cups to grams — the other 227 g dairy staple, with its own measuring quirks
- Butter: cups to grams — milk's other form — 226 g per cup, sticks and tablespoons included
Data sources: King Arthur Baking Ingredient Weight Chart and USDA FoodData Central. Weights are per US customary cup (236.588 mL); other cup sizes are scaled by volume ratio. See the data sources & method page for how values were chosen.