50g Butter to Tbsp (Quick & Easy Conversion!)

Most recipes call for butter in tablespoons. And most brands of butter offer marks on the wrapper to indicate how many tablespoons there are. But some recipes might present a problem: they call for butter in grams. And interestingly enough, a lot of recipes seem to call for 50 grams of butter.

Most of us don’t know the weight of butter to tablespoons conversion off the top of our heads. But if you need to convert metric grams to tablespoons or vice versa, you might be relieved to find that converting grams to tablespoons (or vice versa) isn’t too hard.

Need to convert 50g butter to tbsp? It’s easier than you think!

Table of Contents

• What Does 50 Grams of Butter Look Like?
• Weight vs Volume Conversions
• Converting 50 Grams of Butter to Tbsp
• More Butter Conversions
• What If You Don’t Have a Butter Conversion Chart?
• How to Weigh Butter Accurately
• How Soft Should Butter Be for Baking?
• Should You Use Salted or Unsalted Butter?
• Can You Substitute Shortening for Butter?
• Does the Brand of Butter Matter?
• Getting the Best Out of Your Butter
• FAQs

What Does 50 Grams of Butter Look Like?

A stick of butter usually has marks that help you easily divide butter in tablespoons. That said, a stick of butter often will not note how many grams of butter each section includes. So it can be hard to conceptualize what 50 grams of butter looks like.

Let’s start with how many grams are in one stick of butter. US tablespoons and other US units don’t always convert evenly. A stick of butter contains 113 grams of butter.

That means that 50 grams of butter looks like a little less than half of a stick of butter. That’s all well and good, but how do we convert grams to tablespoons?

Weight vs Volume Conversions

Before we look at how many tablespoons make up 50g butter, it’s important to be clear on the difference between weight and volume measurements. Depending on the density of a given ingredient, a tablespoon will have a different weight.

Let’s take butter and flour as an example. Flour is probably one of the lightest ingredients in any recipe. A tablespoon of flour gives you an even 8 grams of flour. On the other hand, a tablespoon of butter weighs 14.19 grams. Compared to flour, 50 grams of butter takes up much less space.

Whether you use an online unit converter or convert 50 grams of butter to tablespoons, just remember that the same conversions won’t hold true for other ingredients. Tablespoons of butter are usually heavier than tablespoons of other ingredients! As long as you remember that tablespoons of different ingredients have different weights, you should be able to convert grams of butter to tablespoons and vice versa.

Converting 50 Grams of Butter to Tbsp

If you have a stick of butter, it’s probably at least divided into tablespoons. After all, the tablespoon is probably the most common unit of volume used to indicate the amount of butter needed in a recipe.

As a side note, we will be converting butter to US tablespoons. Common grams refer to the same unit of weight across the world, at least in areas that use the metric system. But the exact size of a tablespoon as a unit of volume might vary depending on where you are. Anytime we reference converting grams to tablespoons, we are referring to US tablespoons.

If you bake a lot, you may already know that a 113-gram stick of butter contains an even 8 tablespoons. That means that a tablespoon of butter weighs 14.19 grams. So when rounded to the nearest half a tablespoon, 50 grams butter comes out to 3.5 tablespoons.

Depending on the brand the exact weight of 3.5 tablespoons can vary slightly. Converting grams to tablespoons will work, but if you’re going for maximum accuracy, it’s best to measure ingredients by weight instead of doing a weight-to-volume conversion.

If you want to know how various US tablespoons of butter convert to grams, check out this helpful chart:

• 1 tablespoon: 14 grams
• 1.5 tablespoons: 21 grams
• 2 tablespoons: 28 grams
• 2.5 tablespoons: 35 grams
• 3 tablespoons: 42 grams
• 3.5 tablespoons: 50 grams
• 4 tablespoons: 56 grams
• 7 tablespoons: 100 grams
• 8 tablespoons: 113 grams
• 16 tablespoons: 227 grams

More Butter Conversions

Having some knowledge of tablespoon conversions for butter can be helpful. This video shows you how many grams of butter are in a tablespoon. And now that you know how to convert 50 grams of butter to tablespoons, you might find that you need to know some other butter conversions.

And as we mentioned earlier, converting weight to volume can be tricky because it’s different for every ingredient. Here’s a specific conversion chart for butter. We’ve translated some common volume measurements to both grams and cups (when the volume is enough to be measured in cups or portions of cups).

• 1 stick = 113 g or 1/2 cups
• 1/2 stick = 56.71 g or 1/4 cup
• 2 sticks = 226.8 g or 1 cup
• 1 tablespoon = 14.19 g
• 1 teaspoon = 4.7 g
• 1 pound = 453.6g or 2 cups

Keep in mind that this specific conversion chart only works with US cups. As you might already know, a “cup” refers to a slightly different volume depending on what country you’re in.

What If You Don’t Have a Butter Conversion Chart?

The tablespoons value of 50g butter (or any other weight of butter, for that matter) can be hard to remember. A conversion table like the one above can help you see how many tablespoons of butter are in some common weights. But of course, a table can’t show you every single butter to tablespoons conversion.

That’s where a conversion calculator comes in! As you likely already know, there’s a whole host of baking websites online, and many have tools that let you convert grams to tablespoons for just about any ingredient. And since butter is such a common ingredient, you can find it on just about any calculator.

How to Weigh Butter Accurately

Though using a unit of volume like a tablespoon in baking is usually fine, weighing out your ingredients will ensure that any recipe is more precise. We know that a stick of butter weighs 113 grams. But since many cooking recipes call for a weight that doesn’t translate to an even number of tablespoons, weighing is a lot better than doing a grams to tablespoons conversion.

If you’ve never used a food scale, you’ll be relieved to hear that it’s actually very simple. Make sure that your scale is on the gram setting. Turn it on and zero it to confirm that the empty scale will give a weight of zero grams. Then, adjust the amount of butter on the scale until it exactly matches the measurement in grams that you need.

In some cases, you might not want to need to clean butter off your food scale. Or maybe you need to weigh out some melted butter. This is easy to do, too. Find a container to hold the butter. Place this empty container on the scale and then zero it. This just means that the weight of the container will not be factored into the weight of the butter.

A food scale is a great investment if you want precision in your recipes. And luckily, they are easy to find online and in some department stores. A basic scale is usually very inexpensive.

How Soft Should Butter Be for Baking?

So now you understand measuring out 50g of butter in tbsp. But if you’re making a recipe, you’ll find that mixing in butter straight from the fridge is next to impossible. But if you completely melt down butter, it will become downright watery. So how do you soften butter for baking? And just how soft should it be?

If a recipe includes instructions on how to prepare 50 grams of butter before mixing, be sure to follow that. For instance, if you’re baking something that needs to be crisp, the recipe may call for the butter to be cold. Mixing it this way can be hard (but not impossible), so do your best to follow the recipe.

Some recipes call for the butter to be softened. To soften butter you just let it warm slightly by room temperature. A good rule of thumb is to let it warm until you can make an imprint in it with your finger with a very light touch. If the butter starts to look greasy or shiny, it has softened too much.

If you’re short on time and need to soften butter quickly, there are a couple of tricks you can try. If you still have some time to let the butter soften on the kitchen counter, you can cut it into smaller pieces. This way, you avoid the problem of the edges becoming too soft while the inside remains cold.

If you need to soften butter even faster, there’s a method that will soften it in about 10 minutes. To do this, first get two cups of water in a microwave-safe container. Heat it in the microwave until it is very hot. Usually, this will take about 2 minutes.

For this next step, speed is key. Remove the water container and place sliced butter in the microwave, shutting the door quickly. The butter will soften in around 10 minutes.

So how does this method even work? Microwaving the water releases steam into the microwave’s interior. Once the water is heated, the microwave will retain some of that heat and steam. When you shut the door, the butter will be trapped with the steam. Indirectly, it will be heated up.

You shouldn’t completely melt butter for a recipe that calls for softened butter. It will disrupt the consistency of the batter and ultimately alter the final product. For example, if you’re baking cookies and melt the butter all the way, the cookies will be chewy.

That said, some recipes do call for melted butter. Melting butter may sound easy enough, but it’s ideal to do so carefully so the butter melts evenly. First, cut the butter you need into one-tablespoon pieces. Place the pieces in a microwave-safe bowl and cover it with a small plate.

Heat the bowl gradually on 50 percent power until the butter melts. The total time in the microwave should be 30 to 60 seconds. But if you’re melting a large amount of butter, it may take longer.

Should You Use Salted or Unsalted Butter?

“All-purpose butter” is called for in most baking recipes. And now that you’re familiar with butter conversions of grams to tablespoons, you might start to wonder what kind of all-purpose butter that you should use.

At any given grocery store, you can find traditional butter in two primary forms: salted and unsalted. Most recipes will tell you which type to use right where it lists the amount of butter in tablespoons to include.

But what if a recipe doesn’t specify? A general rule of thumb is to use unsalted butter in recipes where you really need the sweet creamy taste of butter to take center stage; think pound cakes and butter cookies. If needed, you can add some salt to taste.

Salted butter, on the other hand, is great all-purpose butter. It does well in a number of different recipes, and it’s the best choice for putting on toast, pancakes, etc.

Can You Substitute Shortening for Butter?

Some recipes call for shortening and some call for butter. And since both ingredients serve a similar purpose in recipes, you might think there’s no need for a conversion calculator if you want to substitute one for the other.

However, since butter and shortening are different, you do need to make some adjustments. If you follow these general rules, your recipe should turn out just fine!

When substituting shortening for butter: Multiply the weight of the butter by 0.8 and use that weight of shortening.

When substituting butter for shortening: Multiply the weight of the shortening the recipe calls for by 1.25. Use that weight of butter. If you need to convert the weight in grams to tablespoons, look back at the chart above or use an online unit converter.

Does the Brand of Butter Matter?

If you’re planning a recipe out, you probably want to make sure it tastes as great as possible. And a great-tasting recipe of course depends on great-tasting ingredients. There’s no single brand of butter that rises to the top, as the “best” butter is a matter of preference.

Over time, you’ll probably figure out what brand of butter works well with each recipe. But if you aren’t already familiar with the various brands of butter, the best thing to do is take the texture into account. Butters described as being “creamy” will usually blend easily. Creamy butters usually have a higher percentage of fat than your average butter, and they have a richer taste, too. It’s worth noting that the average European butter is slightly higher in fat than your average American butter.

Getting the Best Out of Your Butter

Finding conversions specific to butter is very important if you want to maintain the integrity of your recipe. But once you convert 50 grams of butter (or another weight) into tablespoons, you’ll need to make sure it’s prepared properly for your recipe. Always follow the instructions. And when there’s any doubt, the internet offers a wealth of information on making everything from crepes to cookies!

FAQs

Want to make sure you use the 50 grams of butter in your recipe exactly right? Check out these answers to some common questions.