RecipeScan › Butter Measurement Converter

Butter Measurements.
Every unit. Every state.

1 cup of butter is 227g — 2 sticks, 16 tablespoons, 8 oz. But melted butter weighs more per cup than solid. And UK bakers have never measured butter in sticks or cups. This page converts everything, explains the differences, and tells you when they actually matter.

Sticks to Grams Cups to Grams Tablespoons to Grams Salted vs Unsalted Guide
🧈 One stick of butter — every way you'll see it written
American recipes call the same amount of butter by four different names. They're all identical.
🧈
1 Stick
113g
US standard
🥄
8 Tablespoons
113g
marked on wrapper
🥛
½ Cup
113g
volume measure
⚖️
4 oz
113g
weight measure

Butter Converter

Select what your recipe gives you, enter the amount — get every other unit instantly.

Enter an amount above to see the result

The US Stick — Visualised

American butter wrappers are printed with tablespoon markings. Here's what each portion equals.

🧈 1 Full Stick of Butter (113g)
0 2 tbsp 4 tbsp (¼ cup) 6 tbsp 8 tbsp (½ cup)
2 tbsp
¼ stick · 28g
4 tbsp
½ stick · 57g
6 tbsp
¾ stick · 85g
8 tbsp
1 stick · 113g

Quick-Glance Reference

The butter amounts you'll see most often in recipes — in every unit at once.

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The Gotchas

Five things that catch bakers out when converting butter measurements.

⚠️ Softened vs Melted — Not Interchangeable in Baking
Softened butter
Room temp · holds air
≠
Melted butter
Liquid · no air
When a recipe says "softened butter", it wants you to cream it with sugar — beating in air that makes cakes rise and become light. Softened butter should leave an indent when pressed but not be greasy or shiny.

Melted butter can't trap air. Using it in place of softened butter produces denser, fudgier results — intentional in brownies and some cookies, but disastrous in a Victoria sponge.

"Room temperature butter" and "softened butter" mean the same thing — about 18–20°C, pliable but not liquid. Never microwave butter to soften: the outside melts while the inside stays hard.
⚠️ 1 Cup Melted Butter ≠ 1 Cup Solid Butter
227g
1 cup solid butter
≠
240g
1 cup melted butter
Melted butter flows into every corner of the cup with no air gaps — it's about 5–6% heavier per cup than solid butter.

The phrasing matters: "1 cup melted butter" means measure after melting (240g). "1 cup butter, melted" means measure solid first (227g), then melt. These are different amounts and the comma is doing real work.

The fix: weigh in grams. 227g is always 227g regardless of state, temperature, or technique.
🧂 Salted vs Unsalted — When It Actually Matters
Standard UK salted butter contains approximately 1.6–1.8g of salt per 100g. One stick (113g) contains roughly 1.8–2g of salt — about ⅓ teaspoon.

When it matters: shortbread, buttercream, pastry, and delicate cakes where salt balance is intentional. Use unsalted if specified.

When it doesn't: most everyday baking — traybakes, muffins, flapjacks. The difference is subtle and many bakers prefer the flavour of salted.

Substituting salted for unsalted: reduce added salt by ¼ tsp per 113g stick used. Salted and unsalted butter weigh identically — the conversion numbers never change.
💡 UK Block Butter vs US Stick Butter
UK butter comes in 250g and 500g blocks. There is no stick format in the UK — sticks are an American packaging convention.

1 stick (½ cup)? Cut 113g from a UK block.
1 cup (2 sticks)? 227g — a 250g block minus a thin 23g slice.
2 cups (4 sticks / 1 lb)? 454g — just under a full 500g block.

Ignore the stick format entirely and use grams. A digital scale eliminates all guesswork.
💡 Clarified Butter & Ghee — Different Weight, Different Rules
Clarified butter and ghee have had milk solids and water removed. This makes them approximately 205g per cup — lighter than whole butter (227g) because the water content (~16% of regular butter) is gone.

Higher smoke point — suitable for high-heat cooking. Not suitable as a direct baking substitute without adjusting for the water loss, which affects texture in cakes and biscuits.

If a recipe calls for regular butter and you only have ghee, add 1–2 teaspoons of water per 100g of ghee used to partially compensate.

Full Conversion Tables

Every butter measurement you'll encounter — in every unit.

Sticks (US) Cups Tablespoons Grams Ounces
⅛ stick1 tbsp1 tbsp14g0.5 oz
¼ stick⅛ cup2 tbsp28g1 oz
⅓ stick⅙ cup2⅔ tbsp38g1.3 oz
½ stick¼ cup4 tbsp57g2 oz
¾ stick⅜ cup6 tbsp85g3 oz
1 stick½ cup8 tbsp113g4 oz
1¼ sticks⅝ cup10 tbsp142g5 oz
1½ sticks¾ cup12 tbsp170g6 oz
1¾ sticks⅞ cup14 tbsp198g7 oz
2 sticks1 cup16 tbsp227g8 oz
3 sticks1½ cups24 tbsp340g12 oz
4 sticks2 cups32 tbsp454g16 oz (1 lb)

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