Granulated sugar

One US cup of granulated sugar weighs 200 grams (7.1 ounces). Going the other way, 100 grams is about 0.50 cups.

Also called white sugar, table sugar.

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

A cup of granulated sugar weighs 200 g (7.1 oz), a density of 0.85 g/mL. USDA weighs a cup at 200 g and King Arthur at 198 g, within 1%, and sugar fills a cup almost the same way whether it is spooned or scooped.

Granulated sugar is refined sucrose crystallized from cane or beet juice: white sugar, table sugar, the reference sweetener in nearly every baking recipe. It is the most predictable dry ingredient to measure by volume. The crystals are hard, close in size and free-flowing, so they do not compress in the cup or clump, and a gently spooned cup and one dipped straight from the bag weigh nearly the same. That is the opposite of flour, where the filling method changes the weight by up to a fifth.

USDA's Standard Reference record (FDC 169655) gives 1 cup as 200 g, and its teaspoon portion, 4.2 g, scales to 202 g, the same within rounding. King Arthur's ingredient weight chart gives 1 cup = 7 oz = 198 g. Sugar's FDA reference amount for nutrition labels is 8 g stated in teaspoons, so retail labels print a fixed weight beside a rounded teaspoon count and do not decide the figure.

The physical check: a sucrose crystal weighs 1.59 g/mL. Granulated sugar poured into a cup fills about 53% of it with crystals and leaves the rest as air, which gives 0.84 to 0.85 g/mL, 199 to 201 g per cup. That packing is typical of hard grains of similar size, and it barely changes with the filling method because the grains neither cling together nor compress.

The other sugars on this site sit around it according to crystal size and moisture. Caster sugar, finer crystals of the same sucrose, weighs 190 g, and Swedish pearl sugar 192 g. Powdered sugar, ground with a little cornstarch into a fine powder that traps air, weighs 120 g unsifted. Packed brown sugar, moist with molasses, presses down to 220 g. Swapping one for another by the cup changes the sugar in a recipe by up to 40%.

Practical guidance: use 200 g per cup, 100 g per half cup, 50 g per quarter cup, 12.5 g per tablespoon and 4.2 g per teaspoon. A 4 lb (1.81 kg) bag holds about 9 cups. Spoon or scoop, either works, and level the cup with a straight edge.