Butter Conversion Chart: Sticks, Tablespoons, Cups and Grams
American butter comes in sticks with the measurements printed on the wrapper. Every other butter in the world does not, which is where recipes go wrong.
The short version
- One stick is 8 tablespoons, half a cup, 4 ounces and 113 grams. That single line covers most recipes.
- European butter blocks are 250 grams, which is not a whole number of American sticks.
- European butter has more fat and less water, so it behaves differently in pastry.
- The wrapper is a ruler, and cutting on the lines is accurate enough for everything but baking.
American butter is the only butter in the world that comes pre-measured. The stick is half a cup, the wrapper is a ruler, and you can cut a tablespoon off the end without opening a drawer. It is genuinely the most convenient packaging in the kitchen.
The trouble starts the moment a recipe comes from anywhere else. A European block is 250 grams, which is not a clean number of sticks, and European butter carries more fat and less water on top of that. Both of those change how a dough behaves.
The chart below handles the arithmetic. The fat percentage is the part no chart can fix: if your cookies spread more than they should with fancy imported butter, that is the extra butterfat doing exactly what it is supposed to do.
The Butter Conversion Chart
Sticks to tablespoons to cups to grams, plus what to do when the recipe is European.
The numbers to remember
- 113g
- One stick
- 8 tbsp
- One stick
- 14g
- One tablespoon
- 250g
- Euro block
- 80%
- US butter fat
- 82-86%
- Euro butter fat
| Butter | Tablespoons | Cups | Grams |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1/2 stick | 4 tbsp | 1/4 cup | 57 g |
| 1 stick | 8 tbsp | 1/2 cup | 113 g |
| 1.5 sticks | 12 tbsp | 3/4 cup | 170 g |
| 2 sticks | 16 tbsp | 1 cup | 227 g |
| 4 sticks (1 lb) | 32 tbsp | 2 cups | 454 g |
| Euro block | 17.6 tbsp | 1.1 cups | 250 g |
A 250g European block is about 2.2 American sticks. If a US recipe calls for 2 sticks, cut roughly a tenth off the block rather than using the whole thing.
The Butter Conversion Chart
Sticks to tablespoons to cups to grams, plus what to do when the recipe is European and the butter is not.
Questions people ask
How many tablespoons are in a stick of butter?
Eight. That also makes a stick half a cup, 4 ounces, and 113 grams. The wrapper on an American stick is printed with tablespoon lines, so you can cut what you need without measuring anything.
How many grams is one stick of butter?
113 grams, or 4 ounces. A full pound box holds four sticks, which is 454 grams. If a European recipe asks for 100 grams, that is a little under one stick, about 7 tablespoons.
Is European butter the same as American butter?
No, and the difference matters in baking. American butter is legally at least 80 percent butterfat. European butter runs 82 to 86 percent, so it has less water. Less water means flakier pastry and richer sauces, but it can also make cookies spread more than the recipe expects.
Can I substitute salted butter for unsalted?
Yes, if you adjust. A stick of salted butter carries roughly a quarter teaspoon of salt, so subtract that much from the recipe. For cooking the difference is invisible. For baking, where the salt is measured deliberately, use unsalted and control it yourself.