Cherries (frozen, pitted)

One US cup of cherries (frozen, pitted) weighs 155 grams (5.5 ounces). Going the other way, 100 grams is about 0.65 cups.

Also called frozen cherries, frozen pitted cherries, frozen dark sweet cherries, frozen tart cherries, frozen sour cherries, IQF cherries.

Cherries compared: cup weights side by side, the source behind each, and why they differ.

A cup of frozen pitted cherries weighs 155 g (5.5 oz), a density of 0.66 g/mL, measured frozen. USDA weighs a cup of unthawed frozen tart cherries at 155 g, and its Food Buying Guide yields 159 g per cup once they are thawed with their juice. King Arthur's 113 g would leave more than half the cup empty and is rejected.

Frozen cherries are pitted cherries frozen individually, sold as dark sweet cherries by Dole, Wyman's and most store brands, and as red tart (sour, Montmorency) cherries for pies. Unsweetened frozen cherries are the fruit alone. Sugar-packed frozen cherries, sold mostly to food service, come in syrup and weigh far more per cup once thawed: USDA lists 259 g for thawed sweetened sweet cherries.

USDA's Standard Reference record for frozen unsweetened red tart cherries (FDC 171718) gives 1 cup, unthawed, as 155 g, with 87.2% water. The USDA Food Buying Guide for child nutrition programs, a separate set of yield tests, gives a pound of the same frozen cherries as 11.40 quarter-cup servings of thawed fruit and liquid, about 2 3/4 cups, 159 g per cup. The two agree within 3%. Thawing changes the cup weight little because the juice that runs out fills the gaps the softened fruit leaves.

Fresh cherries give the same answer: USDA weighs a cup of pitted fresh sweet cherries at 154 g, the figure this site publishes for fresh cherries. Freezing barely changes a cherry's size or shape, so frozen and fresh pitted cherries fill a cup alike.

Frozen fruit labels are no help: Dole, Wyman's and Great Value all print 1 cup (140 g), but 140 g is the FDA reference amount for frozen fruit, printed beside the nearest household measure. Even so, if a cup weighed 113 g, those labels would have printed 140 g as about 1 1/4 cups.

King Arthur's ingredient weight chart lists frozen cherries at 1 cup = 4 oz = 113 g, 0.48 g/mL. A frozen cherry weighs roughly 1 g/mL, so a cup at 113 g would be less than half cherry and more than half air. Whole, roughly round fruit poured into a cup fills about 60 to 65% of it, which is what USDA's 155 g shows. King Arthur's own Sour Cherry Pie recipe, which uses frozen or water-packed tart cherries, calls for 5 to 6 cups weighing 1125 to 1350 g, 225 g per cup: twice the chart's figure, and closer to canned cherries with their liquid. The chart's 113 g, a round 4 oz, is rejected.

Practical guidance: measure frozen cherries while frozen and use 155 g per cup, 78 g per half cup. A 12 oz (340 g) bag holds about 2 1/4 cups and a 32 oz (907 g) bag nearly 6 cups, about one pie's worth. If you thaw and drain the cherries first, the cups shrink: the Food Buying Guide's pound gives about 2 3/4 cups with the juice but only 1 3/4 cups drained. Weigh before thawing, or weigh the drained fruit when a recipe gives grams.

The following published figures for cherries (frozen, pitted) are rejected here, with the physics or standards reasoning behind each rejection on its own page:

• King Arthur Baking Ingredient Weight Chart: 113 g per cup