Butter Nutrition Facts, Calories and Saturated Fat

Butter is made by churning cream until the fat clumps together and separates from the buttermilk. Under the US federal definition, butter must contain at least 80% milkfat. Most of the rest is water, with small amounts of milk protein, milk sugar and, in salted butter, salt. That water is why butter has fewer calories per gram than pure fats such as oil or ghee.

Salted and unsalted butter have the same fat and calories; USDA's unsalted butter record differs mainly in sodium, which is a small fraction of the salted butter's 643 mg per 100 g. European-style butters are often churned to a higher butterfat content, so they run slightly higher in fat and calories.

• Whipped butter: regular butter with air or gas beaten in. Per gram it is close to stick butter, but a tablespoon weighs less, so a tablespoon has fewer calories.
• Ghee and clarified butter: butter heated until the water cooks off and the milk solids are removed. What is left is almost pure butterfat, so ghee has more calories per gram than butter.
• Light butter: a different product with less fat and more water, and USDA's light butter record has roughly a third fewer calories per 100 g than regular butter.

In baking, cold butter cut into flour makes flaky pie crust and biscuits, and butter folded into dough in thin layers makes croissants and puff pastry, as its water turns to steam and lifts the layers. Creaming soft butter with sugar traps air for cakes and cookies. On the stove, the milk solids brown and give brown butter its nutty flavor, but they also burn at lower heat than oil, which is why cooks use ghee or add oil for high-heat searing.

• Pie crust. Cold butter worked into flour with a little salt and ice water. All-Purpose Flour · Table Salt
• Chocolate chip cookies. Butter creamed with white and brown sugar, then mixed with egg, flour and chocolate chips. Sugar · Brown Sugar · Egg · All-Purpose Flour · Chocolate Chips
• Buttercream frosting. Soft butter beaten with powdered sugar, vanilla and a splash of milk. Sugar · Vanilla Extract · Whole Milk
• Garlic butter. Softened butter mixed with minced garlic and herbs, for bread, steak or seafood. Garlic · White Bread
• Pound cake. A dense cake built on butter, sugar, eggs and flour. Sugar · Egg · All-Purpose Flour

Weigh butter in grams rather than going by the marks on the stick wrapper, and choose salted or unsalted to match what you use, since that changes your sodium. For baked goods, enter all ingredients in the label generator and set the serving from the baked weight, because water from the butter and dough evaporates in the oven. Butter's own ingredients (typically cream and salt for salted butter) belongs in your ingredient list; the ingredient formatter helps you list it correctly, and the RACC lookup gives the reference amount for your product.