Butter Conversions: Sticks, Cups, Tablespoons and Grams

Why butter measurements confuse people

American recipes call for butter in sticks, tablespoons and cups, while British and European recipes use grams and sell butter in blocks. A cook who switches between the two traditions has to translate between a shape, a volume and a weight.

The good news is that butter is one of the easiest ingredients to convert. US packaging is standardized, so the main relationships are fixed and can be learned in a few minutes. A useful memory aid is that a stick is 8 tablespoons, and a tablespoon of butter is roughly 14 g, so 8 × 14 is close to the 113 g printed on the packet.

The core US relationships

A standard US stick of butter weighs 4 ounces. Its wrapper is marked with tablespoon lines, and the whole stick equals 8 tablespoons, or half a US cup. Two sticks make 1 cup and four sticks make 1 pound.

In short, 1 stick = 8 tablespoons = ½ cup = 4 oz, and 4 sticks = 32 tablespoons = 2 cups = 1 lb.

Because a US tablespoon is exactly one sixteenth of a US cup, these ratios hold for any butter that is sold in sticks.

Butter in grams

One ounce is 28.35 g, so a 4 oz stick is 4 × 28.35 = 113.4 g, which is usually printed as 113 g. A pound is 453.6 g. The converter on this site uses 227 g for one US cup of butter, which makes a stick about 113.5 g and agrees with the ounce figure to within rounding.

The same density gives these smaller amounts:

• 1 cup: 227 g
• ½ cup (1 stick): about 113 g
• ¼ cup (4 tablespoons): about 57 g
• 1 tablespoon: about 14 g
• 1 teaspoon: about 4.7 g

Packaging and charts round differently, so you may see 14.2 g or 14.18 g for a tablespoon. The differences are far smaller than anything you would notice in a bake.

European blocks and metric recipes

Butter in much of Europe is sold in blocks of 250 g or 125 g, not in sticks. A 250 g block is a little more than one US cup. Dividing by 227 g gives about 1.1 cups, or roughly 17½ tablespoons, which is a touch over two sticks.

Going the other way, a metric recipe that asks for 100 g of butter needs about 7 tablespoons, since 100 ÷ 14.2 is 7.0. A request for 125 g is just under 9 tablespoons, which is a little more than one US stick. When a recipe must be exact, cut the extra from a stick using the wrapper’s markings or weigh the butter on a scale.

A worked example

Suppose a recipe asks for ¾ cup of butter. That is 12 tablespoons, or 1½ sticks, and in grams it is 0.75 × 227 = 170 g. If you only have a 250 g block, cut off 170 g, which is about two thirds of the block.

Now reverse it: a recipe calls for 75 g of butter and you have sticks. At 14.2 g per tablespoon this is about 5.3 tablespoons, so 5 tablespoons plus a small extra scrape. For most cakes and cookies, using 5 tablespoons or 5½ will not change the result in a meaningful way, but for pastry it is better to weigh.

Salted, softened and melted butter

Conversions describe the amount of butter, so they apply whether it is cold, softened or melted, provided you measure it as solid butter before it melts. Melting a stick does not change how much butter you have, although the volume in a jug can look different from the wrapper’s markings. When a recipe says “1 cup melted butter”, check whether it means to melt first and then measure, or to measure the solid butter and then melt it.

Salted and unsalted butter weigh about the same, so substitution does not alter the conversion. It can change the seasoning, so follow what the recipe specifies and adjust any added salt if you swap. Spreads and margarines are not covered here, since their water content and packaging vary and the label is the best guide. Cold butter is also easier to cut accurately than soft butter, so portion it before it warms up.

Using a converter for butter

For quick answers, a cooking converter such as this one has butter among its ingredients and converts cups, tablespoons and teaspoons into grams, ounces or pounds in one step. Enter the amount, choose the units and read the result. The tool does not know about sticks or blocks, so convert sticks to cups or tablespoons by hand first: one stick is ½ cup, so three sticks is 1½ cups, which the converter gives as about 340 g.

Remember that the weight per cup is a typical value, and different brands and charts vary by a few grams. For recipes where precision matters, such as laminated pastry or shortbread, a scale gives a more dependable result than any volume measure.