Why Global Bakers Are Ditching Cups and Ounces for Grams in 2026
By Alexander Ross
The standard culinary ounce used across the United States is the international avoirdupois ounce. Established by international agreement in 1959, the avoirdupois ounce conversion factor fixes one ounce at exactly 28.349523125 grams. Multiply that baseline by four, and you land on 113.398 grams.
Digital kitchen scales round this figure to 113.4 grams, or simply 113 grams on budget models that lack decimal readouts. This number holds a sacred place in American recipe archives. A standard stick of butter produced in the United States weighs exactly 4 oz, which equals a quarter pound in grams. When a legacy recipe calls for half a cup of butter, it asks for one stick, four ounces, and precisely 113.4 grams of dairy fat, water, and milk solids.
Rounding errors compound rapidly across scaled bakes. A home cook doubling a batch while rounding four ounces up to 120 grams injects an extra 13.2 grams of unintended fat or sugar into the mixing bowl. In delicate emulsions or laminated pastries, that unmeasured excess alters structure and hydration percentages instantly.
Alexander Ross has covered the video game industry for a decade, writing deep dives on game design, esports tournaments, VR developments, and gaming culture.
