Dear Americans;
What does “two tablespoons of butter” look like?
I have cups for your recipes that need cups, whilst recognising that “cups” isn’t really a standard measure as in a “cup” to one is not another's “cup”
But when I try to research what “a tablespoon of butter” is the results are absolutely wild, 30 grams?
So please, help me out, what is a tablespoon of butter? Visual aids would be most appreciated wherever possible. Thank you!
@james We have markings on the butter wrapper here. We usually get four half-cup sticks in a package. One sec, I'll get a photo for you.
When people ask for a tablespoon I think of the thing that most people use to eat a bowl of cereal. I don’t like tablespoons, I eat everything with a teaspoon.
A standard colloquial tablespoon in my drawer holds 7.5ml of water edge to edge, which is exactly the 1/2 tablespoon measure on my actual spoon measures.
The actual tablespoon measure I have which is 15mls comes out to weighing around 12g of water.
A scoop of butter with this measure is approximately 14g.
But looking at sticks of butter with “tablespoon” measures it looks closer to 20 or 25g and some recipes have said to is means 20-25g.
DO YOU SEE WHY I AM STRESSED
@james A tablespoon is half an ounce. An ounce is 30g (28.4 but CEFGW). So a Tbsp is 15g. Q.E.D.
I do a lot of baking using American recipes and this is the correct conversion factor.
@james …I realized I should show a little more of my work. Ounces is both a weight and volume measure. They are equal for water or anything with the same density of water. The density of butter - indeed the density of anything you're likely to bake with - differs by no more than a few percent.
So if a recipe calls for, say, 1/4 cup of butter, it's perfectly fine to treat that as 2oz (weight) ≈ 60g.
@BadExampleMan this is helpful, particularly as a man who absolutely sucks to bizarre degrees when it comes to baking.
Thank you!
Thank you to everyone who is filling my replies with pictures of their butter! The labels you have seem very helpful for the recipes you have.
It does not help me in so much as “these look like more than 15g of butter” and “colloquially a tablespoon here in the UK seems to hold about 7.5g” and “some of these pics look like they have different ideas of tablespoons just like your damn cups”
But it does help me to know my frustrations are valid and generally all your butter metrics do seem to be largely the same, so I do indeed have a much better idea of what I am working with.
Cheers!
@james What in the world are you making that needs such precise butter measurements?
@james I love this. obviously not that you're stressed, but that this also causes stress for you. my grandma has been baking her whole life and even though we have these wonderful metric measurement systems in $not-usa she would just add $stuff to the dough and I was desperately circling her trying to measure EVERYTHING so that I would have a proper recipe in the end 😅.
@james my spouse has exactly this same issue with spoons.
The spoon you mention for eating cereal is what a UK recipe would call a "dessert spoon". A dessert spoon is about 10ml.
What UK recipes call a "tablespoon" is a larger spoon typically used for serving - it's a spoon for the table, rather than for a person. A tablespoon is about 15ml.
None of this is helped by US and UK measures being slightly different, UK frequently using US measures, and nobody saying which they use.
@james to add to your stress: 15ml water should weigh 15g because the metric system was designed so that the density of water is 1kg/l.
The thing that you think is a tablespoon is actually called a dessert spoon
@james Am I missing something? I thought the whole point of ml/g/cm^3 is that they’re 1:1:1 equivalent when dealing with water?
Well if I’m not measuring water, the equivalence starts to become irrelevant. And I was thinking about butter, but as I’ve discovered the density is still roughly equivalent.
My issues were more around what many in the UK refer to as a tablespoon not matching a US definition. Because some families h the UK (like mine) use “tablespoon” for what is actually a desert spoon, which is a significantly smaller measurement (roughly half the size of a tablespoon)
Now; I have proper table measures, so I avoid that issue, but it’s still a complicating factor for someone who doesn’t have those measures.
And besides that, I’ve read many US recipes that do conversion where a tablespoon is in fact much larger than 15g, which is as Ive now discovered through asking: wrong.
So I wanted to ask the experts, the US folk, what they think a tablespoon is, to inform my future accurate cooking. And I succeeded.
@regordane yep! I know. But that’s why I wrote my post, to show a silly difference between UK and US, how we call a thing that isn’t a tablespoon a tablespoon, and just see if all the US people had a consensus on what a tablespoon measure is for butter 🤣
I've never called it that nor been aware of anyone else doing so. That's why I was surprised
@regordane ahhh! It seems universal in the UK in so much as there is debate and arguments over what people call it 🤣
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskUK/comments/11iqp4v/what_do_you_call_a_standard_spoon/
@brunogirin my scale is not very accurate for small quantities for sure
@james she was cute and told me that this is something you do "nach Gefühl" which translates to "season to taste" but more literally "according to your feeling" and it makes me mad because I have an innate need to standardize this "feeling" lol. Also... I'm just learning to bake this... I have no feel for this dough. Let me have peace and a recipe with proper measurements 🙏.
@kmohrf mood! What is the stuff! What are you adding! How much! Why?!
@kmohrf I am terrible at baking. To the point that I’ve helped partners with little bits, simple tasks like “stirring” and somehow end up splitting the mix.
@benetherington I’m just autistic 🤣
But the recipe is a risotto and it said 2 tablespoons of butter
@james We had family live with us for a few months last summer. I wouldn't let them make the coffee because they didn't use the scale. Risotto can be tricky! I feel like I use a different amount of water each time, almost like baking bread.
I do feel the need to defend the other cooks and bakers here in the UK because we definitely do just eyeball things a lot like you do, I’m just autistic and get annoyed at imprecision.
When I cook something for the first time I very strictly follow the recipe. Apart from with garlic, a lot of recipes including globally never have enough garlic.
I did end up just whinging it on the butter and it turns out I’ve got about 3.5 tablespoons for this risotto where the recommended was 2, but 2 felt like too little for this risotto I’ve cooked many times.
I am not a very confident cook these days. I will ask Esther for recipes for the amazing stuff she cooks me but she is so fucking good (seriously) at cooking that it’s just vibes and experience a lot of the time.
My vibes are off 🤣
@kestral but that conversion only works if we’re talking water to water 😭
Don't overthink this.
Use a bit of force (or let the butter warm to room temp) and mash the butter into the tablespoon, flatten it off, then somehow scoop it back out.
Repeat once.
You can also safely overdo the butter in almost any context and it will be fine.
edit: probably better. The secret of most "chefs" is a lot of butter.
@james I’m sorry I didn’t mean to kick off massive debate in your replies
You n me both. It's actually kinda cool that *I* get to the be one telling someone else to not overthink something. A neat feeling that I only feel very rarely. :>
