Durum flour

One US cup of durum flour weighs between 124 and 142 grams (4.4 to 5 ounces), depending on how the cup is filled and which source measured it. Use 124 grams (4.4 ounces) if you spoon the flour into the cup and level it. Every figure behind it is below, with the method each source used.

Also called extra fancy durum flour, durum wheat flour, fine durum flour, finely ground durum flour.

A cup of durum flour weighs 124 to 142 g (4.4 to 5 oz), and the difference is how the cup is filled. King Arthur, which spoons flour into the cup and levels it, gives 124 g; America's Test Kitchen, which dips the cup into the bag and sweeps it level, gives 142 g. Spooned, use 124 g.

Durum flour is milled from durum wheat (Triticum durum), the hard, high-protein, amber wheat used for dried pasta. Milled coarse, durum becomes semolina, the gritty meal of pasta dough and many Italian and North African breads. Milled further, past the semolina stage, it becomes durum flour, sold in the US as extra fancy durum or simply durum flour. King Arthur describes its durum flour as finely textured, and America's Test Kitchen notes that durum flour is more finely ground than semolina flour and warns against swapping in Caputo's semola rimacinata, a re-milled semolina, in its durum bread.

King Arthur's ingredient weight chart lists durum flour at 1 cup = 4 3/8 oz = 124 g. America's Test Kitchen's Orange-Chocolate Durum Bread calls for 2 cups (10 ounces), 5 oz or 142 g per cup. The 14% gap is beyond the 10% this site allows for flours, so the range is published, and King Arthur's figure is accepted at the bottom of it.

The two sources disagree in exactly the way they disagree about every flour. King Arthur weighs all-purpose flour at 120 g a cup by spooning; America's Test Kitchen weighs it at 5 oz, 142 g, by dipping and sweeping. Their durum figures, 124 g and 142 g, sit in the same places, and the same ATK recipe gives bread flour at 5 1/2 oz a cup. Durum flour therefore packs like an ordinary fine wheat flour, as its milling predicts. King Arthur's own durum flour bag prints 1/4 cup as 30 g, 120 g per cup, but 30 g is the FDA reference amount for flour printed beside a quarter cup, so it is kept as a source without a figure.

The physical check: wheat flour particles have a density of about 1.45 g/mL. Spooned all-purpose flour at 120 g fills about 35% of a cup with flour, and durum flour at 124 g fills 36%. Semolina at 167 g, USDA's figure on this site, fills nearly half, because its hard, coarse granules hold little air.

That gap is the practical trap. A recipe written for semolina that gets durum flour by the cup is about a quarter short by weight, and durum flour swapped for semolina cup for cup is a third over. Indian durum atta, a whole-meal durum flour, carries the same 30 g per quarter cup label convention and has not been measured separately.

Practical guidance: use 124 g per cup if you spoon and level, 142 g if you scoop, and weigh whenever a recipe gives grams. When a recipe allows either durum flour or semolina, convert between them by weight, not by volume.