butter · conversions
Butter Measurements Made Easy: Cups, Tablespoons, Sticks, and Grams
Sticks, cups, tablespoons and grams all describe the same block of butter. Here's the full conversion table and how to measure butter without a scale.
Por Ali RazaActualizado 6 min de lectura
Butter is measured in more mutually incompatible ways than any other baking ingredient. American recipes use sticks and cups, British ones use grams, and older cookbooks use ounces. All of them are describing the same thing, and the conversions are mercifully exact.
The master table
| Sticks | Cups | Tablespoons | Grams | Ounces |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ¼ stick | ⅛ cup | 2 tbsp | 28 g | 1 oz |
| ½ stick | ¼ cup | 4 tbsp | 57 g | 2 oz |
| ¾ stick | ⅜ cup | 6 tbsp | 85 g | 3 oz |
| 1 stick | ½ cup | 8 tbsp | 113 g | 4 oz |
| 1½ sticks | ¾ cup | 12 tbsp | 170 g | 6 oz |
| 2 sticks | 1 cup | 16 tbsp | 227 g | 8 oz |
| 3 sticks | 1½ cups | 24 tbsp | 340 g | 12 oz |
| 4 sticks | 2 cups | 32 tbsp | 454 g | 16 oz (1 lb) |
Use the wrapper
US butter wrappers are printed with tablespoon markings along their length. This is the easiest measuring tool in the kitchen: to get 4 tablespoons, cut the stick at the mark. No cup, no scale, no washing up.
It also works in reverse. If a recipe asks for 85 g and you have a marked stick, that is 6 tablespoons — cut at the six.
European butter is a different shape
Butter sold outside North America usually comes in 250 g blocks rather than 113 g sticks, and is not marked. Some brands sell 200 g or 227 g blocks. Since the packaging states the total weight, the reliable approach is to cut proportionally: half a 250 g block is 125 g, a quarter is 62.5 g.
| Fraction of block | Grams | Tablespoons | Cups (approx.) |
|---|---|---|---|
| ⅛ | 31 g | 2.2 tbsp | ⅛ cup |
| ¼ | 62.5 g | 4.4 tbsp | ¼ cup |
| ½ | 125 g | 8.8 tbsp | ½ cup + |
| ¾ | 187.5 g | 13.2 tbsp | ¾ cup + |
| 1 | 250 g | 17.6 tbsp | 1 cup + |
Measuring butter without a scale or markings
The water displacement method works and is more accurate than trying to press butter into a measuring cup:
- Decide how much butter you need — say ½ cup.
- Fill a liquid measuring cup with cold water to 1 cup minus that amount. For ½ cup of butter, fill to ½ cup.
- Add butter pieces until the water rises to the 1 cup line.
- Drain the water. The butter left behind is exactly ½ cup.
It works because butter is only slightly less dense than water and sinks reliably. Use cold water so the butter does not soften and cling.
Does melting change the weight?
No. Melting changes nothing about mass — 113 g of butter is 113 g whether solid or liquid. But it changes the volume measurement significantly, because solid butter measured by cup traps air pockets and melted butter does not.
So a cup of melted butter contains more butter than a cup of solid butter cut to the same line. If a recipe says "½ cup butter, melted", measure it solid and then melt. If it says "½ cup melted butter", melt first and then measure. As with flour, the word order is the instruction.
Salted or unsalted?
Weight-wise they are identical, so this does not affect any conversion. But salted butter contains roughly 1.5% salt by weight — about 1.7 g in a stick, or a bit over a quarter teaspoon. If a recipe specifies unsalted and you only have salted, reduce the added salt by about ¼ teaspoon per stick.