FlourScaleHow much is a stick of butter?
In the United States butter is usually sold in 1-pound boxes of four sticks. One stick weighs 4 ounces (113 g), measures ½ cup and equals 8 tablespoons. Most wrappers are printed with tablespoon marks, so you can cut exact amounts without measuring. Elsewhere butter is usually sold by weight — commonly 250 g blocks in Europe, Australia and New Zealand and 454 g (1 lb) blocks in Canada — which is why converting matters when you follow an American recipe.
Butter conversion chart
| US sticks | Cups | Tablespoons | Grams | Ounces |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ¼ stick | 2 tbsp | 2 | 28 g | 1 |
| ½ stick | ¼ cup | 4 | 57 g | 2 |
| 1 stick | ½ cup | 8 | 113 g | 4 |
| 1 ½ sticks | ¾ cup | 12 | 170 g | 6 |
| 2 sticks | 1 cup | 16 | 227 g | 8 |
| 4 sticks | 2 cups | 32 | 454 g | 16 (1 lb) |
Worked example
A European recipe asks for 250 g of butter and you only have US sticks.
- 250 ÷ 113.4 = 2.2 sticks
- That is 2 sticks plus about 1 ½ tablespoons (250 − 227 = 23 g; 23 ÷ 14.2 ≈ 1.6 tbsp)
Going the other way, a US recipe that needs 1 ½ sticks requires 1.5 × 113 = 170 g from a 250 g block.
Tips for measuring butter
- Weigh for accuracy. One US tablespoon of butter is about 14.2 g. Cutting by wrapper marks is fine for most recipes; for laminated doughs and shortbread, weigh.
- Melted vs solid. Weight does not change when butter melts. "½ cup melted butter" and "½ cup butter, melted" are effectively the same amount, about 113 g.
- Australian tablespoons are bigger. An Australian tablespoon is 20 ml rather than about 15 ml, so "2 tablespoons of butter" in an Australian recipe is roughly a third more.
- Salted vs unsalted. Salted butter typically contains roughly 1.5–2% salt (varies by brand). If you substitute it for unsalted, reduce added salt by about ¼ teaspoon per stick.
- European-style butter has a higher fat content (often 82% or more vs 80%). It weighs the same per stick but can make pastry flakier and cookies spread a little more.