How to Measure Butter Without a Scale

Butter is one of the easier ingredients to measure accurately, even without a kitchen scale, because it comes with built-in reference points if you know where to look.

Use the wrapper markings

Most butter sticks sold in the US are printed with tablespoon markings along the wrapper, and a full stick is typically 8 tablespoons (about 113g, or half a cup). If your recipe calls for a specific number of tablespoons, you can usually cut directly along the printed lines without measuring anything else.

Convert grams to tablespoons

If your recipe gives butter in grams instead, the conversion is straightforward once you know that one US cup of butter weighs about 227g and contains 16 tablespoons. So each tablespoon is roughly 14g. For example, 100g of butter is close to 7 tablespoons, or run it through the converter directly for an exact figure.

The water displacement method

For odd amounts without clean wrapper markings, fill a liquid measuring cup with cold water to a known level, then add butter until the water rises by the volume you need, a classic trick for measuring solid fats by volume. This works because 1ml of displaced water is close to 1ml of butter, regardless of the fat’s shape; King Arthur Baking’s ingredient weight chart lists the standard reference weight this method is checked against.

When precision matters most

Butter’s water and fat content are heavily temperature-dependent, and cold butter packs differently into a cup than softened butter. For recipes where butter ratio is critical, like laminated pastry or shortbread, weighing (if you have a scale) beats any cup-based estimate. For everyday baking, wrapper markings or a quick gram-to-tablespoon conversion get you close enough every time. If flour is the ingredient you’re more often measuring without a scale, How to Measure Flour Without a Scale covers the equivalent technique for that side of the bowl.