How Many Grams in a Cup of Butter?

Butter provides flavor, tenderness, and leavening assistance in creamed cakes and cookies. One US cup of butter equals 227 grams—exactly two standard American sticks. Each stick is half a cup or 113.5 grams, and each tablespoon is 14.18 grams. Salted and unsalted butter weigh the same per cup; only sodium content differs.

Measure butter using wrapper tablespoon markings, a dry measuring cup packed with softened butter, or a kitchen scale for best accuracy. For cold butter, displacement methods work: fill a liquid cup with water to one cup, add butter chunks until water reaches two cups, equaling one cup butter.

Common mistakes include confusing US butter cup size with metric blocks—a European 250g block is not one US cup. Substituting margarine or spread by volume changes water content and baking performance. Measuring melted butter in the same volume as solid butter is correct by weight but avoid air bubbles when pouring melted butter into cups.

Store butter refrigerated up to one month or frozen up to nine months wrapped airtight. Substitute coconut oil at 218 grams per cup for vegan baking with texture changes. European-style butter with higher fat performs similarly at 227 grams per cup.

Butter at 227 grams per cup is one of the most referenced baking conversions because American recipes still list sticks alongside cups. European recipes using 250-gram blocks require adjustment: one US cup is slightly less than a metric block quarter. When browning butter, weigh before melting because foam and milk solids change appearance without changing the fat needed in the recipe. Clarified butter removes water, so do not substitute by equal cup volume when a sauce depends on butter's moisture content—use weight of the original butter called for and clarify separately.

Keep a conversion note on your fridge: half cup butter equals 113.5 grams and quarter cup equals about 57 grams. These fractions appear constantly in cookie recipes that split sticks unevenly.