Cup (unit) - A Cup

The cup is a unit of measurement for volume, used in cooking to measure liquids (fluid measurement) and bulk foods such as granulated sugar (dry measurement). It is principally used in the United States, Canada and Liberia where it is a legally defined unit of measurement, and is sometimes found in older recipes in the rest of the world using the metric system, and the meaning can differ significantly. Actual cups used in a household in any country may differ from the cup size used for recipes; standard measuring cups, often calibrated in fluid measure and weights of usual dry ingredients as well as in cups, are available. Using millilitre/decilitre measures is a recommended option to avoid ambiguity.

Metric cup

Some countries in the Commonwealth of Nations, notably Australia, Canada and New Zealand, define a metric cup of 250 millilitres. Units such as metric cups and metric feet are derived from the metric system but are not official metric units

A "coffee cup" is 1.5 dl or 150 millilitres or 5.07 US customary fluid ounces, and is occasionally used in recipes. It is also used in the US to specify coffeemaker sizes (what can be referred to as a Tasse à café). A "12-cup" US coffeemaker makes 57.6 US customary fluid ounces of coffee, or 6.8 metric cups of coffee. In older recipes cup may mean "coffee cup".

United States customary cup

United States customary cup is defined as half a U.S. pint.

A customary "cup" of coffee in the U.S. is usually defined as 4 fluid ounces, brewed using 5 fluid ounces of water. Coffee carafes used with drip coffee makers, such as Black and Decker models, have markings for both water and brewed coffee, since the carafe is also used for measuring water prior to brewing. A 12-cup carafe, for example, has markings for 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12 cups of water or coffee, which correspond to 20, 30, 40, 50, and 60 fluid ounces of water or 16, 24, 32, 40, and 48 fluid ounces of brewed coffee, respectively, the difference being the volume lost to evaporation during brewing.

United States "legal" cup

The cup currently used in the United States for nutrition labelling is defined in United States law as 240 ml.

Imperial cup

The imperial cup is half an imperial pint. It is no longer in common use, but many recipe books still include it.

Canadian cup

1 Canadian cup = 8 imperial fluid ounce = 1/20 imperial gallon = 227.3045 millilitres

1 tablespoon = 1/2 imperial fluid ounce

1 teaspoon = 1/6 imperial fluid ounce

It should be noted that many Canadian cups follow the standard metric unit of 250 millilitres.

Japanese cup

The Japanese cup is currently defined as 200 ml.

Gō

The traditional Japanese cup, the gō, is approximately 180 ml. 10 gō make one shō, the traditional flask size, approximately 1.8 litres. Gō cups are typically used for measuring rice, and sake is typically sold by the cup (180 ml), the bottle (720 ml), and flask (1.8 litre) sizes. Note modern sake bottle sizes are almost the same as the 750 ml international standard for wine bottles, but are divisible into 4 gō.

International

In European cuisine the cup measure may be found in older recipes, with sometimes uncertain meaning; the transition to the metric system was generally made in the 19th century. In Latin American recipes a cup (taza) may be interpreted as 200 ml, 250 ml or as a US cup measure, depending on country, but there is no consensus and other definitions may be used. In parallel also the measure "glass" (vaso) may be 200 ml.

Using volume measures to estimate mass

In Europe, cooking recipes normally state any liquid volume larger than a few tablespoons in millilitres, the scale found on most measuring cups worldwide. Non-liquid ingredients are normally weighed in grams instead, using a kitchen scale, rather than measured in cups, as weighing is normally more accurate, and often demanded for confectionery and professional cookery. Most recipes in Europe use the millilitre or decilitre (1 dl = 100 ml) as a measure of volume. For example, where an American customary recipe might specify "1 cup of sugar and 2 cups of milk", a European recipe might specify "200 g sugar and 500 ml of milk" (or 0.5 litre or 5 decilitres). Conversion between the two measures must take into account the density of the ingredients, and some recipes specify both weight and volume to simplify. Many European measuring cups have additional "weight scales" besides the dl or ml scale for common bulk ingredients like sugar, flour, or rice to make the process eas ier.