For flour, I turn to the Greatest Issue of Cook's Illustrated Ever. Seriously, May/June 2009 had the greatest chocolate chip cookies EVER, excelling instructions on how to butterfly and grill a chicken, and the Magic Table of converting different types of flour from volume to weight ... whether the recipe calls for sifted or unsifted flour!
Flour
Type of Flour | Weight of 1 Cup Unsifted | Weight of 1 Cup Sifted |
---|---|---|
All-Purpose | 5 ounces (142 gm) | 4 ounces (114 g) |
Cake | 4 ounces (114 g) | 3.25 ounces (92 g) |
Bread | 5.5 ounces (156 g) | 4.5 ounces (128 g) |
Sugar
Granulated sugar is easy to do, but brown sugar usually says "packed". What does that mean? It basically means packed to the same density as granulated flour. So 1 cup of granulated/light brown/dark brown sugar is 7 ounces (198 g). That's it.
Cocoa
1 cup of cocoa powder weighs 3 ounces (85 g).