US Recipe to UK Converter
Everything you need to cook an American recipe in a British kitchen: measures, oven temperature and ingredient names.
1. Convert an American measure
Answer
1 US cup plain flour = 125 g
2. Convert the oven temperature
3. American terms in UK English
Reference and detail
Sticks of butter
One stick of butter is 113 g, or half a US cup. Two sticks make 227 g, which is close to a standard British 250 g block.
Flour is the big one
American all-purpose flour is close to British plain flour, but American self-rising flour already contains salt as well as raising agent. If a recipe calls for self-rising flour, use self-raising flour and leave out any added salt.
Questions and answers
Questions about converting a US recipe for a UK kitchen
What usually needs changing when cooking an American recipe in the UK?
Three things: cup and spoon measures into grams and millilitres, the oven temperature from Fahrenheit, and a handful of ingredient names that mean something different or don't exist here.
Is American self-rising flour the same as British self-raising flour?
Not quite, American self-rising flour already contains salt as well as raising agent, while British self-raising flour doesn't. If a US recipe calls for self-rising flour, use self-raising flour and leave out any salt the recipe adds separately.
What other American ingredient names trip people up in a UK kitchen?
Confectioners' sugar is icing sugar, heavy cream is double cream, and what Americans call biscuits is closer to a British scone than a biscuit. Use the calculator above to check the ingredient list of your specific recipe.
How many UK butter blocks does a recipe measured in sticks need?
Enter the number of sticks in the calculator above for the gram figure, then weigh that amount from a UK block rather than trying to match blocks to sticks by eye.
Guidance
Read the full guide
- Cups to Grams: Why the Ingredient MattersA cup measures space, not weight, so one cup of flour and one cup of sugar are nowhere near the same. Here is what that means when you follow an American recipe.