Butter Cups to Grams
Does the recipe ask for a US stick, melted butter, or a measured cup? Decide what the instruction means first: one American stick is 1/2 US cup, or 8 tablespoons.
Choose how to measure butter for your recipe
US stick or tablespoons
Use the wrapper marks: 1 US stick is 1/2 cup or 8 tablespoons (113 g on King Arthur's chart).
Butter to melt
Follow the recipe's order: measure a stick before melting, or measure melted volume when specified.
Unmarked or non-US package
Use the package weight or recipe grams; a local stick is not necessarily a US stick.
Recipe says sticks or tablespoons: use the marked wrapper
A standard US stick is 1/2 cup, or 8 tablespoons. Land O'Lakes' wrapper guide shows the manufacturer marks for smaller amounts, so you can slice the stick before putting it in the bowl. King Arthur's butter weight entry lists 113 g for that half cup. Two US sticks therefore equal 1 cup and 226 g by the reference used in this calculator; 1 1/2 sticks give 3/4 cup and 169.5 g.
Recipe says melted: follow the order of its instruction
For 'melt one stick of butter,' measure or weigh one standard stick first, then melt it; heating does not require an extra portion. If the recipe instead calls for '1/2 cup melted butter,' it names a volume after melting: measure the liquid at that stage when no weight is supplied. For a recipe that already gives a gram weight, use those grams directly rather than guessing from the appearance of a melted puddle.
No US markings on your package: read its weight instead
A block or stick sold in another country may have different markings, so two local sticks are not automatically one American cup. Read the actual package weight and prefer the recipe author's grams where provided. For reference, Land O'Lakes' full-cup table rounds 1 cup to 227 g, versus the 226 g derived from King Arthur's two 113 g half cups. That one-gram chart difference is rounding, not a reason to add butter to a recipe already specified by mass.
Reference measurement
226 grams per US cup
Use wrapper markings or pack softened butter into a dry US cup without air gaps.
King Arthur Baking lists 1/2 cup butter as 113 g; normalized to 226 g per US cup. Source note
American butter sticks provide the most reliable volume markings.
Common Butter measurements
| US cups | Grams |
|---|---|
| 0.25 US cups | 56.5 grams |
| 0.333 US cups | 75.33 grams |
| 0.5 US cups | 113 grams |
| 0.667 US cups | 150.7 grams |
| 0.75 US cups | 169.5 grams |
| 1 US cup | 226 grams |
| 1.5 US cups | 339 grams |
| 2 US cups | 452 grams |