Pounds of butter to cups runs on one number, 1.9982043 cups per pound. It is a measured property of this ingredient rather than a defined conversion, which is why a generic volume-to-weight tool cannot give you it.
Water is the yardstick: 1 mL of it weighs 1 g. Butter comes in at 0.95947 g per mL, or 95.95% of water, which is why a cup of it is 227 g rather than 236.6 g. Volume and weight only line up for water, and only in metric.
A cup of butter is 227 g when it is measured the standard way, but how it gets into the cup changes the answer: between about 222.5 g and 236.1 g covers the range from lightly spooned to firmly packed. That 4% spread is larger than most of the adjustments recipes fuss over, and it disappears entirely the moment the ingredient is weighed instead.
Pounds are how butter is bought rather than cooked, so this is the bag-size arithmetic: one pound is 1.998 cups, a 2 lb pack is 3.996 cups and a 5 lb sack is 9.991. That last figure is the one worth knowing before a large bake — it tells you whether one bag covers the recipe.
How the figure is arrived at: Exactly two US sticks, or half a pound — the one ingredient volume measuring gets right, because the wrapper is printed with a ruler.
The formula
pounds- The amount of butter you are converting, in pounds
1.99820427313- Cups per pound for butter, from its density of 0.95947 g/mL
cups- The equivalent quantity in cups
How it works, step by step
- Enter the quantity in pounds.
- It is multiplied by 1.99820427313, the cups-per-pound figure for butter.
- The result appears in cups, with a second reading in tbsp beneath it.
- Use the measure table if you want a standard recipe quantity rather than a number you type in.
Worked examples
3/4 lb of butter in cups
A recipe calling for 3/4 lb of butter needs 1.49865 cups on the scale. The arithmetic is 0.75 × 1.9982043 = 1.4986532, and halving the recipe halves the weight to 0.749327 cups.
1 1/2 lb of butter in cups
Take 1 1/2 lb of butter: 1.5 × 1.9982043 gives 2.99731 cups. Doubling the batch takes it to 5.99461 cups, because the relationship is a straight proportion once the density is known.
3 lb of butter in cups
3 lb of butter weighs out at 5.99461 cups. Divide 5.99461 by 1.9982043 and you get back to 3 lb, which is the quickest check that the factor is the right way up.
How to read your score
Frequently asked questions
How many cups are in 1 lb of butter?
One pound of butter is 1.9982043 cups. Half that quantity is 0.999102 cups and double it is 3.99641 cups, so the figure scales straight up and down — there is no offset in this conversion, only the factor.
Why is a cup of butter not 236 g like water?
Because weight per cup depends on what is in the cup. Butter has a density of 0.95947 g per mL where water has 1.00, so a cup of it weighs 227 g rather than 236.6 g. That is a difference of 9.6 g per cup, and it is the reason a single volume-to-weight factor cannot be applied to every ingredient.
Does how I measure it change the weight?
Barely. Butter does not compress, so a cup of it is 227 g however it is poured — within about 4%, which is inside the accuracy of a domestic scale. This is the group where measuring by volume is defensible.
Is a fluid ounce of butter the same as an ounce?
No. A fluid ounce is a volume — one eighth of a US cup, 29.57 mL — and an ounce is a weight. One fluid ounce of butter weighs 1.001 oz, so the two readings differ by 0.0899%. They coincide only for something with the density of water, and then only roughly.
Is this a US cup or a metric cup?
US customary: 236.59 mL, which is the cup every US recipe means. A metric cup is 250 mL, so the same cup of butter would weigh 239.87 g instead of 227 g — 12.9 g more, or 5.67%. Australian and some European recipes use the metric cup, and the difference is large enough to matter in baking.
Do I need a scale for this, or will measuring cups do?
A scale, if the result matters. Volume measuring carries a spread of about 4% for butter — roughly 9.08 g on a 227 g cup — while a domestic scale is accurate to a gram or two. For anything where the ratio of ingredients drives the outcome, bread and pastry above all, weigh it.
How much does 2 cup of butter weigh?
2 cup of butter comes to 454 g, or 1.0009 pounds. This page runs that calculation in reverse — enter a weight and it returns the volume — and the cups-to-pounds page does it in the direction the question is usually asked.
Butter in pounds and cups
| Pounds | Cups | Unrounded |
|---|---|---|
| 1/4 lb | 0.499551 cup | 0.4995510683 |
| 1/2 lb | 0.999102 cup | 0.9991021366 |
| 3/4 lb | 1.49865 cup | 1.498653205 |
| 1 lb | 1.9982 cup | 1.998204273 |
| 1 1/2 lb | 2.99731 cup | 2.99730641 |
| 2 lb | 3.99641 cup | 3.996408546 |
| 3 lb | 5.99461 cup | 5.994612819 |
| 5 lb | 9.99102 cup | 9.991021366 |
Based on 227 g per cup of butter. One pound of butter is 1.9982043 cups.
| Measure | Grams | Ounces | Millilitres |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 cup | 227 g | 8.01 oz | 236.6 mL |
| 3/4 cup | 170.2 g | 6.01 oz | 177.4 mL |
| 2/3 cup | 151.3 g | 5.34 oz | 157.7 mL |
| 1/2 cup | 113.5 g | 4 oz | 118.3 mL |
| 1/3 cup | 75.67 g | 2.67 oz | 78.86 mL |
| 1/4 cup | 56.75 g | 2 oz | 59.15 mL |
| 1 tbsp | 14.19 g | 0.5 oz | 14.79 mL |
| 1 tsp | 4.729 g | 0.167 oz | 4.929 mL |
US customary measures: 1 cup = 236.59 mL, 1 tbsp = 14.79 mL, 1 tsp = 4.93 mL.
| Ingredient | Grams per cup | Ounces per cup | Density (g/mL) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vegetable shortening | 205 g | 7.231 oz | 0.8665 |
| Lard | 205 g | 7.231 oz | 0.8665 |
| Butter (this page) | 227 g | 8.007 oz | 0.9595 |
| Margarine | 227 g | 8.007 oz | 0.9595 |
Ordered by weight. The spread across this group is why a single generic cups-to-grams factor cannot work.