Pounds to cups

Pounds to cups

Pounds to cups

how many ounces is in 3 pounds

Your apple pie recipe calls for “3 pounds apples, peeled, cored and sliced.”

But what if you have a bagful of apples, the result of your apple-picking expedition to the orchard, and want to prepare the equivalent of “3 pounds apples, peeled, cored and sliced” – without a scale?

Or the apple crisp recipe says, “6 cups chopped apples.” You’re on your way to the store – how many apples do you need to buy to end up with 6 chopped cups?

How do you translate the volume or weight of whole apples to that of prepared apples ahead of time – before you actually peel, core, chop or slice, and measure?

Here’s how –

Spoiler alert – if you don’t find research and math interesting, and want “just the facts, ma’am” – scroll to the bottom line at the end of this post.

You lose about 30% of an apple, by weight, when you peel and core it. This will vary somewhat, of course, depending on apple variety and juiciness; this isn’t exact science. But it’s a place to start.

A cup of chopped/sliced apples (again, this will vary slightly with apple variety/freshness and size of dice/slice) weighs about 3 1/2 ounces.

Notice I say ABOUT 3 1/2 ounces; obviously, the way you slice them, as well as the season (winter-storage apples weigh less than fresh apples) will make a difference. Don’t stress if your cup of apples weighs 3 ounces, or 4 ounces, OK?

Let’s start with a pound of apples. They lose about a third of their weight once they’re prepared. (My fellow test baker and trained chef, Susan Reid, points out that if I were a chef, I’d say that the “yield %” of apples is about 65%. Thanks, Susan!) So that original pound of apples becomes a generous 10 ounces of peeled, cored, chopped/sliced apples. Since a cup of prepared apples weighs about 3 1/2 ounces, 1 pound of whole apples translates to about 3 cups of prepared apples.

OK, now let’s start with a recipe calling for 8 cups sliced apples. A pound of apples will yield 3 cups; so for 8 cups prepared apples, you’ll need about 2 2/3 pounds whole apples (make it 2 3/4 pounds, if you’re at the supermarket weighing).

I tried this math with different sizes of apples; large apples yield slightly more prepared apples per pound than small apples.

Which makes sense – the size of the apple core or peel doesn’t change much from small apple to large apple; so large apples yield slightly more “usable parts.”

One more thing. Does a cup of sliced apples weigh the same as a cup of chopped apples?

Depends on the size of the slice/size of the dice… but yeah, basically they weigh the same.

Bottom line: if you remember nothing else, stash this in your memory bank – a pound of whole apples will yield about 3 cups prepared apples.

Starting there, you can do the easy math to figure out just how many apples you need for that blue ribbon apple pie!

This post was last modified on November 15, 2024 6:08 am