Kitchen Measurement Converter
Convert between deciliters, tablespoons, teaspoons and grams — useful when a recipe uses different measurements than what you have on hand.
How to use the kitchen measurement converter
- Enter the amount you want to convert.
- Choose which unit the amount is given in (dl, tbsp, tsp or ml).
- Choose an ingredient to get a gram estimate — the weight per volume unit varies a lot between ingredients.
How the conversion is calculated
Everything is first converted to milliliters, and then to the other units based on fixed standard measures:
1 tbsp (tablespoon) = 15 ml
1 tsp (teaspoon) = 5 ml
The gram estimate is calculated from a typical weight per deciliter for the selected ingredient — for example, wheat flour is lighter than water per volume unit (about 60 g/dl versus 100 g/dl).
Volume to weight depends on the ingredient
A decilitre is always a decilitre, but what it weighs depends entirely on what is in it. A decilitre of plain flour weighs roughly sixty grams, a decilitre of sugar closer to ninety, and a decilitre of water a hundred. Volume and weight therefore cannot be converted with a single fixed ratio — the conversion has to be done per ingredient.
For flour, volume measurement is additionally imprecise because it packs down. Flour scooped straight from the bag with a measuring cup can weigh noticeably more than flour that has been sifted or left loose — differences of ten to fifteen percent are common. That is the main reason baking recipes that need to be accurate give weight in grams rather than volume.
Frequently asked questions
How many tablespoons are in a deciliter?
1 dl is about 6.7 tablespoons, since 1 tablespoon = 15 ml and 1 dl = 100 ml.
Is a tablespoon always 15 ml?
The metric tablespoon (15 ml) and teaspoon (5 ml) used here are close to most countries' standard measuring spoons, but exact sizes can vary slightly — check the recipe's origin for international recipes if precision matters.