Butter is sold and measured in entirely different units depending on where you are in the world. US recipes call for sticks and cups; UK and European recipes weigh butter in grams or list it in millilitres; and professional pastry work often demands precision to the gram. This butter conversion calculator covers all nine common units — grams, ounces, pounds, kilograms, US cups, US sticks, tablespoons, teaspoons and millilitres — and converts any one of them to all the others simultaneously, with full working shown so you can see exactly where each number comes from.
How the conversion works
All conversions go through a single common currency: grams.
Every unit has a fixed gram-equivalent factor:
| Unit | Grams each | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 teaspoon | 4.72 g | 1/3 of a tablespoon |
| 1 tablespoon | 14.17 g | 3 teaspoons, 1/16 cup |
| 1 ounce | 28.35 g | exact avoirdupois |
| 1 millilitre | 0.911 g | butter density at room temperature |
| 1 US stick | 113.4 g | 8 tbsp, ½ cup, 4 oz |
| 1 US cup | 226.8 g | 16 tbsp, 2 sticks |
| 1 pound | 453.6 g | 4 sticks, 2 cups |
| 1 kilogram | 1000 g | ≈ 8.8 sticks |
The formula in both directions is:
grams = amount × factor result = grams ÷ target factor
So to convert 3 tablespoons to grams: 3 × 14.17 = 42.5 g. To convert 42.5 g to sticks: 42.5 ÷ 113.4 = 0.375 sticks (displayed as ⅜ of a stick).
The calculator also recognises common fractions (¼, ⅓, ½, ⅔, ¾ and so on) and shows them alongside the decimal where relevant, making it easier to align the result with cup-marked measuring tools.
Worked example: scaling a cookie recipe
A US cookie recipe calls for 2 sticks (1 cup) of butter. You want to make 1½× the batch and you are measuring on a kitchen scale in grams.
- Start: 2 sticks = 2 × 113.4 = 226.8 g
- Scale: 226.8 × 1.5 = 340.2 g
- Check: 340.2 ÷ 113.4 ≈ 3 sticks exactly (or 1½ cups, 48 tablespoons)
Enter 340 in the Amount field, select Grams, and the table confirms: 3 sticks, 1.5 cups, 24 tablespoons — all displayed at once.
European block sizes at a glance
European butter commonly comes in 125 g, 250 g and 500 g blocks. Here are the US equivalents:
| EU block | Sticks | Cups | Tablespoons |
|---|---|---|---|
| 125 g | 1.1 sticks | just over ½ cup | ~8.8 tbsp |
| 250 g | ~2.2 sticks | ~1.1 cups | ~17.6 tbsp |
| 500 g | ~4.4 sticks | ~2.2 cups | ~35.3 tbsp |
Why millilitres need a density value
Weight and volume are the same only for water (1 g = 1 ml). Butter is mostly fat and is less dense than water, at about 0.911 g/ml at room temperature. That means 1 ml of melted or softened butter weighs about 0.911 g, and 1 cup (240 ml of water) translates to roughly 218 ml of butter by volume — but the mass stays 227 g regardless. For all weight-based units no density assumption is needed; the millilitre figure is the only one affected by temperature.
Formula note
grams = amount × gramsPerUnit targetAmount = grams ÷ gramsPerTargetUnit
All conversions are exact to the precision of the published unit standards. The millilitre figure uses density = 0.911 g/ml; all other factors are defined constants.