You're standing in the kitchen, flour on your hands, and the recipe calls for exactly one cup of butter. You look at that cardboard box of Land O'Lakes or the store-brand salted sticks in your fridge. You pause. Is it two? Is it four? Honestly, getting this wrong ruins a batch of cookies faster than overbaking them.
The short answer is two sticks.
Basically, in the United States, a standard stick of butter is half a cup. So, if you need one cup, you grab two sticks. Simple, right? Well, it’s mostly simple until you start dealing with different brands, European imports, or those weirdly shaped "stubby" sticks they sell on the West Coast.
The math behind your butter wrappers
Standard American butter sticks are wrapped in paper that has those little tablespoon markings printed right on the side. If you look closely at the wrapper, you’ll see eight marks. Each mark represents one tablespoon. Since there are 16 tablespoons in a full cup, math dictates that two sticks—each containing 8 tablespoons—equal exactly one cup.
It's 2 sticks. Every time.
But wait. Have you ever noticed how some butter sticks are long and skinny while others are short and fat? If you live in California or Washington, you’ve probably seen the "Western Stubby" sticks. They look totally different from the "Elgin" style sticks used in the East. Here’s the kicker: they both weigh exactly the same. They both contain the same amount of fat. Whether it’s a long, elegant stick or a chunky little block, it’s still 4 ounces. Two of those blocks will always give you that 1-cup measurement you’re looking for.
Why weight is actually better than volume
Most professional bakers, like the ones you see on The Great British Baking Show or pros like Claire Saffitz, don't really care about "sticks" or "cups." They care about grams. Why? Because butter isn't a solid, unchangeable rock. It can be aerated. It can be cold and dense or warm and squishy.
One cup of butter weighs 227 grams.
If you want to be perfect—and let's be real, baking is chemistry—you should weigh your butter. When you mash butter into a measuring cup, you might leave air pockets. Or maybe you packed it too tight. If you use a scale, you eliminate the guesswork. 113.5 grams per stick. Double it for a cup. It’s foolproof.
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I’ve seen people try to measure softened butter by shoving it into a dry measuring cup and leveling it off with a knife. It’s a mess. It’s inaccurate. Just use the wrappers or a scale. Your pie crust will thank you.
How many sticks of butter is 1 cup when the butter is European?
Now, things get a little spicy when you walk into the "fancy" dairy aisle. You see Kerrygold. You see Plugra. Maybe some French butter with sea salt crystals.
European butter is different.
First, the fat content is higher. American butter is usually around 80% butterfat, while European styles sit at 82% or higher. This makes for flakier pastries and a richer taste. But more importantly for our conversion problem, European butter often doesn't come in 4-ounce sticks.
Often, Kerrygold comes in an 8-ounce block. Since 8 ounces is exactly one cup, that entire gold-wrapped brick is your measurement. If you’re used to grabbing two sticks out of a four-stick box, you might accidentally use double the butter if you treat a European block like a single American stick. Check the weight on the package. If it says 8 oz (227g), that's your cup. If it says 17.6 oz (500g), that's roughly 2.2 cups.
Does it matter if it’s salted or unsalted?
Strictly speaking, for the volume measurement, no. One cup of salted butter occupies the same space as one cup of unsalted butter.
However, your recipe might suffer. Salted butter contains a variable amount of salt depending on the brand. According to the USDA, salted butter typically has about 1/4 teaspoon of salt per stick. So if you’re using two sticks to make a cup, you’re adding an extra 1/2 teaspoon of salt to your dough. If your recipe already calls for a teaspoon of salt and you use salted butter, your cake might end up tasting like a salt lick.
Always try to stick to unsalted for baking. It gives you control. You're the boss of the salt, not the dairy plant.
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The "Melted Butter" trap
Here is where a lot of home cooks mess up. Do you measure the butter before or after melting?
If a recipe says "1 cup butter, melted," you measure 1 cup of solid butter (two sticks) and then melt it.
If a recipe says "1 cup melted butter," it technically implies you should measure the liquid.
In reality, butter doesn't change its mass much when it melts, but it does lose a tiny bit of volume if water evaporates during a long simmer (like when making brown butter). For most standard cookies or brownies, just use the two-stick rule before you put it in the microwave. If you're browning the butter, keep in mind you might lose about 15-20% of the volume through water evaporation. If you need exactly one cup of browned butter, you actually need to start with about one and a quarter cups of solid sticks.
Butter conversion cheat sheet for your brain
You don't need a table to remember this stuff, just a few mental anchors.
- 1 stick = 1/2 cup = 8 tablespoons = 4 ounces = 113 grams.
- 2 sticks = 1 cup = 16 tablespoons = 8 ounces = 227 grams.
- 4 sticks = 2 cups = 32 tablespoons = 16 ounces (1 pound) = 454 grams.
If you’re ever in doubt and the wrapper is torn or missing, look for a standard ruler. A stick of Elgin-style butter is roughly 4.75 inches long. A Western stubby is about 3.25 inches. But again, the weight is the truth.
I once tried to eyeball a cup of butter from a giant tub of Margarine. It was a disaster. Margarine and butter substitutes often have more water or air whipped into them. While the "2 sticks = 1 cup" rule usually applies to margarine sticks too, the results in baking won't be the same because of that water content. If the recipe calls for butter, use the real stuff.
Real-world application: The Thanksgiving dilemma
Imagine you're making mashed potatoes for ten people. The recipe calls for 1.5 cups of butter. You’re staring at the fridge. You know now that 1 cup is 2 sticks. Half a cup is 1 stick. So you grab three sticks.
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It feels like a lot. It is a lot. But that's why restaurant food tastes better than home cooking—it's almost always just more butter.
Actionable steps for your next bake
Stop guessing.
First, check your butter's origin. If it's a standard American box, grab two sticks for every cup needed.
Second, look at your wrappers. Most people ignore the lines, but they are surprisingly accurate for cold butter. If the butter is already soft, don't try to use the lines; the paper gets distorted.
Third, if you bake more than once a month, buy a digital kitchen scale. They cost twenty bucks. You can put your bowl on the scale, hit "tare" to zero it out, and just slice butter into the bowl until it hits 227 grams. No dirty measuring cups. No "is this 8 tablespoons or 7?" anxiety.
Finally, remember that temperature matters more than the stick count for the texture of your food. If a recipe says "room temperature," your butter should dent when you press it with a finger but shouldn't be shiny or greasy. If it's too soft, your 1 cup of butter will cause your cookies to spread into thin oily puddles, regardless of how accurately you measured those two sticks.
Get your butter to the right consistency, count out your two sticks, and get to work. Your measurements are solid now.
Next Steps for Better Baking
- Check your fridge: Verify if you have "Stubby" or "Elgin" sticks so you aren't surprised by the shape next time you're following a visual tutorial.
- Calibrate your eyes: Slice one stick at the 4-tablespoon mark just to see what half a stick (1/4 cup) actually looks like without the wrapper.
- Switch to weight: Start noticing the "grams" listed on your butter packaging and try using a scale for your next recipe to see the difference in consistency.