Dried fruit grams per cup: raisins to candied cherries compared

A US cup of dried fruit weighs anywhere from 86 grams for dried apples to 200 grams for candied cherries. Piece size, stickiness and sugar decide where each one lands, and packing the cup adds 14 percent or more.

All weights are for a US cup of 236.5882365 ml; a tablespoon is a sixteenth of it. A range means the sources disagree by more than this site’s tolerance for that kind of ingredient, so no single figure is chosen. King Arthur’s figure is shown where this site records one, with the verdict on it. Each ingredient’s own page has every source and the full reasoning.

Dried fruit falls into two groups on this site. Small, firm, rounded fruit, such as raisins, currants and dried cranberries, blueberries and cherries, pours into a cup like coarse sugar, so it sits in the sugar category and is held to a 5 percent tolerance. Dried mango sits with them too, though its pieces run from chunks to strips, which is why its range is so wide. Larger and stickier pieces, such as apricots, figs, dates, prunes, pineapple and apples, behave more like chopped nuts and sit in the milled category at 10 percent.

Added sugar adds weight. Most dried cranberries, cherries and blueberries are sweetened during drying, and the coating both adds mass and fills the gaps between pieces. USDA's sweetened dried cranberries weigh 160 grams per cup while King Arthur's dried cranberries, sweetening not stated, weigh 114 grams, a 40 percent gap this site publishes as a range. Dried apples go the other way: fresh apple is about 85 percent water, and drying leaves a porous, air-filled piece at 86 grams per cup.

Sticky fruit ignores the shape of its pieces. USDA weighed dried apricot halves and King Arthur weighed diced apricots, yet they land at 130 and 128 grams. Dried figs agree exactly at 149 grams. Sticky pieces clump into masses that hold about the same air whatever their size.

How the cup is filled matters more than the brand for the soft fruits. Raisins weigh 145 grams loose and 165 grams packed in USDA's own measurement. Chopped dates weigh 147 grams settled, and a firmly pressed cup can reach 180 to 200 grams. Prunes weigh 174 grams spooned, with USDA and Sunsweet in exact agreement. For baking, weigh dried fruit, and when a recipe says packed, expect the heavier figure.

Candied fruit is the heavy end. Glacé cherries are cooked in sugar syrup until the fruit is saturated, which leaves them about 80 percent sugar, and a cup of whole candied cherries weighs 200 grams by both King Arthur and the Waitrose conversion chart, against 142 to 160 grams for dried cherries. The figure carries low confidence because both sources are rounded charts; older American tables put cut-up candied fruit at about 181 grams a cup.