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You are assuming a stick of butter doesn't have a standard amount, which simply isn't true. Each stick is a half of a cup and is a quarter of a pound even if th

You are assuming a stick of butter doesn't have a standard amount, which simply isn't true. Each stick is a half of a cup and is a quarter of a pound even if the dimensions of the stick are different. If you need less, there are marking to cut it, much like the markings for grams on the butter in Norway. If I'm converting from sticks to grams, I use the above information as a guide or simply weigh it. The information to covert it is easily found online, I've done it many times - mostly, I've not lived in the US for many years yet I still want to make familiar foods.

EdwardDiego 5y ago
To be fair, if you don't live in the US, how would you know that a stick is a standardized measure? ...is it a standardized measure? (Out of curiosity, is it a regulated measure? Would I be prosecuted for selling a stick of butter that doesn't weigh 1/4 of a pound?) In my country we wouldn't describe a solid in cups, just grams.
- pueblito 5y ago
  It’s not a regulated measure, just traditional that each stick is half a cup and the wrapper has 8 marks so you can slice off a tablespoon easily. Each stick is 113g
- DiabloD3 5y ago
  Sticks are marked with tablespoon markings on their wrappers.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  > if you don't live in the US, how would you know that a stick is a standardized measure? Because you ran into it in the first place. You think cookbooks are giving out subjective instructions? "You said stick, but I don't know what that means" is a pretty reasonable conclusion to draw when you encounter the usage. "You said stick; you must not believe that words have meanings" is something else again.
  - EdwardDiego 5y ago
    As someone not from the US, a "stick" sounds as precise a quantity as a "handful", a "dollop", a "pinch", a "dash", a "splash", or a "spoonful". An obvious analogy for the lack of precision of "stick of butter" outside of US culture is my culture's "block of butter" - typically, a block of butter in my country is 500g. But not always. So how do you know how much butter I intended you to use if I say "add half a block of butter" in my biscuit recipe? How big is a block of butter where you live? Do they even sell it by the block? Or is it just sticks? Rough mental calculation, there's about 4 and nearly a half sticks to the block. I guess there's a reason humans developed and use units of measurement. Anecdote time! When I was young I tried to follow a recipe off the Internet that specified a stick of butter. So I diligently cut a long skinny bit of butter from my block of butter, a little confused as to what difference the shape made. The biscuits were rather awful.
    - wil421 5y ago
      A stick is a shape. There are various shapes of butter in the US. Almost all butter that is wrapped in soft paper and has a “stick” or rectangle shape is 8oz (227g) for 2 “sticks” or 1 stick (block) that’s basically 2 sticks put together (Kerrygold). The larger packages are a pound, 16oz (~253.6g) and usually contain 4 sticks. There are some exceptions like Amish butter that come in a 2 pound roll (round block). Kerrygold and Finlandia butter from Europe adapt to the 8oz and 16oz standards just like a US company would adapt to UK or likely EU standards.
    - themaninthedark 5y ago
      If you said block of butter to me, I would assume 4 sticks or 1 lbs as you can buy it as such unseperated for bulk baking. See: https://www.495expressfoods.com/products/butter-salted-1lb-block https://www.495expressfoods.com/products/butter-salted-1lb-b...
      - EdwardDiego 5y ago
        Ah yep, so similar, but smaller than our typical block size of 500g. Although these days a lot of the fancier butter comes as 250g. This is probably one of my country's fanciest butter makers: https://lewisroadcreamery.co.nz/collections/butter https://lewisroadcreamery.co.nz/collections/butter
- Broken_Hippo 5y ago
  To be fair, if you don't live in the US, how would you know that a stick is a standardized measure? I'm American. I lived in the US until around 8.5 years ago and I moved to Norway. I've had to look up conversions many times so that I could cook comfort food. Other folks have answered the regulated measure stuff, but FWIW: Every butter maker sold sticks where I was from (Indiana) and all the sticks were the same size. Margarine brands did the same so long as they weren't sold in tubs.
- shaftway 5y ago
  > To be fair, if you don't live in the US, how would you know that a stick is a standardized measure? Cue the funny anecdote. We've been using au pairs to help with the kids. It took about 6 months for one of us to notice that when a recipe called for "1 cup" of something, one au pair would go into the cabinet and grab a random glass and use that to measure. Our glasses range from 4 oz. to 18oz, so there were tons of size disparities. We didn't notice for so long because she was usually making rice, and the ratio was the most important part, and the ratios was cups to cups. To be clear, that disparity had just never occurred to us, and in no way did we blame her. All of us (including her) had a good laugh over it and we showed her where the measuring cups were kept.
watt 5y ago
You never mentioned how many grams the "stick" weighs. And I have never found out. Saying it's half "a cup" is even more ridiculous. What does volume have to do with it? Greetings from Berlin.
- praestigiare 5y ago
  It differs a bit based on water content, but is close enough to 100 grams that you can treat it as 100 grams for anything you are likely to use butter for.
  - 24t 5y ago
    Butter is a common ingredient in pastries, which require extreme precision for consistent results
    - krisoft 5y ago
      Detecting gravitational waves requires extreme precision. Pastries are in the ordinary precision range. :) Joking aside I suspect if you are good enough where the limiting factor in your baking is the precision of butter specified as opposed to sloppy techniques you are better off using a recipe written by a professional pastry chef for other proficient bakers. In my experience they usually write quantities in terms of weight and recommend measuring it that way. For example Claire Saffitz calls in her Confetti Cake recipe for "3 sticks unsalted butter (12 oz / 340g), at room temperature". That would indicate that the 100g approximation is 13% low.
    - praestigiare 5y ago
      I make a lot of pastry, actually. I've even gone to school for it, though I don't do it professionally now. Variable moisture content of flour is a bigger variable. I can't think of a case where someone would be using sticks of butter and 100 grams is not close enough.
    - Spivak 5y ago
      If you're a commercial food manufacturer with a factory then yes. For everyone else up to "professional with a pastry shop" it's way less dire then you make it seem.
OJFord 5y ago
> You are assuming a stick of butter doesn't have a standard amount, No I'm not, it's just completely unknown here (and I believe in most of the world). Don't make me look up '1 stick butter size' when I'm trying to follow your recipe.. The reason I say it's more annoying than cups (which are arguably worse because I said there's multiple, but in practice they're so close it's not likely to matter) is I suppose just that it's enough less common that I don't have 250ml in the back of my mind when I read it. When I first came across it it was even worse, I assumed it was like 'a knob' (knife off a little 'stick' of butter from the block), which is obviously much less than it is, and didn't think to look it up as something standard but unfamiilar to me.
- OJFord 5y ago
  Sorry, re-reading that was really unclear. I meant '*as I said there's multiple', and that cups are common enough that I remember 250ml as good enough, whereas sticks I don't come across often enough to remember whatever it is.

EdwardDiego 5y ago

To be fair, if you don't live in the US, how would you know that a stick is a standardized measure? ...is it a standardized measure? (Out of curiosity, is it a regulated measure? Would I be prosecuted for selling a stick of butter that doesn't weigh 1/4 of a pound?) In my country we wouldn't describe a solid in cups, just grams.

pueblito 5y ago
It’s not a regulated measure, just traditional that each stick is half a cup and the wrapper has 8 marks so you can slice off a tablespoon easily. Each stick is 113g
DiabloD3 5y ago
Sticks are marked with tablespoon markings on their wrappers.
thaumasiotes 5y ago
> if you don't live in the US, how would you know that a stick is a standardized measure? Because you ran into it in the first place. You think cookbooks are giving out subjective instructions? "You said stick, but I don't know what that means" is a pretty reasonable conclusion to draw when you encounter the usage. "You said stick; you must not believe that words have meanings" is something else again.
- EdwardDiego 5y ago
  As someone not from the US, a "stick" sounds as precise a quantity as a "handful", a "dollop", a "pinch", a "dash", a "splash", or a "spoonful". An obvious analogy for the lack of precision of "stick of butter" outside of US culture is my culture's "block of butter" - typically, a block of butter in my country is 500g. But not always. So how do you know how much butter I intended you to use if I say "add half a block of butter" in my biscuit recipe? How big is a block of butter where you live? Do they even sell it by the block? Or is it just sticks? Rough mental calculation, there's about 4 and nearly a half sticks to the block. I guess there's a reason humans developed and use units of measurement. Anecdote time! When I was young I tried to follow a recipe off the Internet that specified a stick of butter. So I diligently cut a long skinny bit of butter from my block of butter, a little confused as to what difference the shape made. The biscuits were rather awful.
  - wil421 5y ago
    A stick is a shape. There are various shapes of butter in the US. Almost all butter that is wrapped in soft paper and has a “stick” or rectangle shape is 8oz (227g) for 2 “sticks” or 1 stick (block) that’s basically 2 sticks put together (Kerrygold). The larger packages are a pound, 16oz (~253.6g) and usually contain 4 sticks. There are some exceptions like Amish butter that come in a 2 pound roll (round block). Kerrygold and Finlandia butter from Europe adapt to the 8oz and 16oz standards just like a US company would adapt to UK or likely EU standards.
  - themaninthedark 5y ago
    If you said block of butter to me, I would assume 4 sticks or 1 lbs as you can buy it as such unseperated for bulk baking. See: https://www.495expressfoods.com/products/butter-salted-1lb-block https://www.495expressfoods.com/products/butter-salted-1lb-b...
    - EdwardDiego 5y ago
      Ah yep, so similar, but smaller than our typical block size of 500g. Although these days a lot of the fancier butter comes as 250g. This is probably one of my country's fanciest butter makers: https://lewisroadcreamery.co.nz/collections/butter https://lewisroadcreamery.co.nz/collections/butter
Broken_Hippo 5y ago
To be fair, if you don't live in the US, how would you know that a stick is a standardized measure? I'm American. I lived in the US until around 8.5 years ago and I moved to Norway. I've had to look up conversions many times so that I could cook comfort food. Other folks have answered the regulated measure stuff, but FWIW: Every butter maker sold sticks where I was from (Indiana) and all the sticks were the same size. Margarine brands did the same so long as they weren't sold in tubs.
shaftway 5y ago
> To be fair, if you don't live in the US, how would you know that a stick is a standardized measure? Cue the funny anecdote. We've been using au pairs to help with the kids. It took about 6 months for one of us to notice that when a recipe called for "1 cup" of something, one au pair would go into the cabinet and grab a random glass and use that to measure. Our glasses range from 4 oz. to 18oz, so there were tons of size disparities. We didn't notice for so long because she was usually making rice, and the ratio was the most important part, and the ratios was cups to cups. To be clear, that disparity had just never occurred to us, and in no way did we blame her. All of us (including her) had a good laugh over it and we showed her where the measuring cups were kept.

watt 5y ago

You never mentioned how many grams the "stick" weighs. And I have never found out. Saying it's half "a cup" is even more ridiculous. What does volume have to do with it? Greetings from Berlin.

praestigiare 5y ago
It differs a bit based on water content, but is close enough to 100 grams that you can treat it as 100 grams for anything you are likely to use butter for.
- 24t 5y ago
  Butter is a common ingredient in pastries, which require extreme precision for consistent results
  - krisoft 5y ago
    Detecting gravitational waves requires extreme precision. Pastries are in the ordinary precision range. :) Joking aside I suspect if you are good enough where the limiting factor in your baking is the precision of butter specified as opposed to sloppy techniques you are better off using a recipe written by a professional pastry chef for other proficient bakers. In my experience they usually write quantities in terms of weight and recommend measuring it that way. For example Claire Saffitz calls in her Confetti Cake recipe for "3 sticks unsalted butter (12 oz / 340g), at room temperature". That would indicate that the 100g approximation is 13% low.
  - praestigiare 5y ago
    I make a lot of pastry, actually. I've even gone to school for it, though I don't do it professionally now. Variable moisture content of flour is a bigger variable. I can't think of a case where someone would be using sticks of butter and 100 grams is not close enough.
  - Spivak 5y ago
    If you're a commercial food manufacturer with a factory then yes. For everyone else up to "professional with a pastry shop" it's way less dire then you make it seem.

OJFord 5y ago

> You are assuming a stick of butter doesn't have a standard amount, No I'm not, it's just completely unknown here (and I believe in most of the world). Don't make me look up '1 stick butter size' when I'm trying to follow your recipe.. The reason I say it's more annoying than cups (which are arguably worse because I said there's multiple, but in practice they're so close it's not likely to matter) is I suppose just that it's enough less common that I don't have 250ml in the back of my mind when I read it. When I first came across it it was even worse, I assumed it was like 'a knob' (knife off a little 'stick' of butter from the block), which is obviously much less than it is, and didn't think to look it up as something standard but unfamiilar to me.

OJFord 5y ago
Sorry, re-reading that was really unclear. I meant '*as I said there's multiple', and that cups are common enough that I remember 250ml as good enough, whereas sticks I don't come across often enough to remember whatever it is.