How to Measure Flour (The Right Way)

Learn how to measure flour accurately with a measuring cup, especially for baking recipes. With this method, you’ll get great results every time!

Did you know that there is a right way to measure flour?

I didn’t. When the recipe said 1 cup of flour, I simply just scooped the flour into a measuring cup.

It took me a while to finally learn that this is not an accurate method (Don’t worry, that was my pre-blogging days).

The Wrong Way to Measure Flour

When you measure by volume using a measuring cup, the actual amount of flour you use varies based on different factors:

How you scoop the flour
How tightly you pack it

If a recipe calls for a cup of flour, you could end up with a different amount each time. And this can affect your final results, especially when it comes to baking recipes.

Many of us learn how to measure flour just like how I illustrated below. Turns out it is an imprecise (incorrect) way. 🙅🏻‍♀️

How to Measure Flour (The Right Way) — Scooping flour with a measuring cup.

The 1 cup of flour was 145 grams (5.1 oz). I tried it again, and this time it was 141 grams (5 oz). Give it a try and see how much flour you get with this method.

Now, The Right Way to Measure Flour

First of all, you must remember this:

1 cup of flour = 120 g (4.2 oz)

The wrong method above gave me 145 grams of flour. That’s 25 grams (roughly 3 tablespoons) more than what I needed!

So here, I’ll show you the right way to measure flour. I also included a video tutorial below, so take a look after the recipe.

5 from 3 votes

How to Measure Flour (The Right Way)

Prep Time

3 mins

Total Time

3 mins

Learn how to measure flour accurately with a measuring cup, especially for baking recipes. With this method, you’ll get great results every time!

Course: How to

Cuisine: American

Keyword: flour

Servings: 1 cup flour

Author: Namiko Chen

Ingredients

Any of the flours below

all-purpose flour (plain flour)
cake flour
bread flour

Instructions

Fluff up the flour in the bag or container. Flour is tightly packed inside the bag or container. To avoid packed flour, you need to fluff it up with a spoon before you measure it.
Using a spoon, sprinkle the flour into the measuring cup. Gently pile it in until it forms a heap above the rim of the measuring cup. Never pack the flour down.
Scrape a knife across the top of the measuring cup to level the flour. This way, you’ll get rid of excess flour on top of the cup without packing down the flour inside.
1 cup of leveled all-purpose flour should weigh 120 grams (4.2 oz).

Watch How to Measure Flour

Learn how to measure flour accurately with a measuring cup, especially for baking recipes! With this method, you’ll get great results every time!

To watch the tutorial on YouTube, please click here.

My Advice: Get a Kitchen Scale

To test my recipes precisely, I use a kitchen scale for the majority of my baking because weighing flour with a kitchen scale will give you the most accurate measurement every single time.

Kitchen scales don’t have to be expensive and fancy. I have this, this, and this in my kitchen and they all work great (and I have no preference). It’s flat and easy to store in a drawer under my kitchen island. I can easily access it for my recipe testing. It’s a great investment!