Stop Guessing: Here’s How Many Cups Are in a Pound of Powdered Sugar (2024)

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Anyone who’s ever baked anything knows it involves a bit of art and a lot of science. And should you be making a recipe that lists ingredients by weight (grams and pounds) instead of volume (cups and tablespoons), as many baking recipes do for more precise measurements, math comes into the equation too. To further complicate things, there is no simple conversion of 1 pound to cups for all ingredients because each ingredient takes up a different amount of space (volume) per pound of weight. If you’re trying to determine how many cups are in a pound of powdered sugar (or flour, for that matter), there is one more variable to consider: Is your powdered sugar sifted or unsifted? Prepare for your trip to the store by knowing many cups of powdered sugar are in a pound.

How Many Cups of Powdered Sugar in a Pound

Let your cake recipe, powdered sugar icing recipe, or whatever baking recipe you’re using determine if you need to sift the powdered sugar. Sifting powdered sugar makes it lighter and fluffier, so you’ll need more of it by volume to reach 1 pound. With these guidelines, you’ll know the answer to “how many cups of powdered sugar is a pound?”

• 1 pound = 3½ to 4 cups unsifted powdered sugar
• 1 pound = 4½ cups sifted powdered sugar

How Many Cups Are in a 2-Pound Bag of Powdered Sugar?

The usual 32-ounce package (2 pounds) of powdered sugar has about 7½ cups of powdered sugar.

Whether you’re an experienced pastry chef or a beginner home baker, the art of making sweet and savory baked treats all comes down to using the exact quantity of an ingredient. The only way to ensure that cake or loaf of bread turns out the same every time? Weighing ingredients. By using a scale to measure ingredients, you eliminate measuring errors and the possibility of working with inaccurate measuring cups. And after spending all that time and money on one recipe—you don’t want to risk ruining the outcome. To avoid having to remember (or look up) the cups-to-pounds information, a simple kitchen scale eliminates that task and could make baking feel more like therapy (or at least make it more enjoyable). Either way, you’re now equipped to more accurately measure powdered sugar in any recipe.