How Much Is A Knob Of Butter?

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In some cookbooks or online recipes, you will be instructed to add a “knob of butter.” You may be told to put a knob of butter on top of grilled meat. This instruction is found in English and Irish cookbooks, and for all I know, Scottish, too. What is a knob? It’s a small lump of butter. “How much is it? You wonder. The answer is you’re being much too exact. If a recipe says to add a knob of butter to a pan for sautéing, it usually means to add just enough butter to cover the bottom. Cooking isn’t like baking. It is about adding enough of an ingredient to get the result you want.

Since we usually use sticks of butter here in the States, a knob of butter may be from one to two tablespoons. Otherwise, it will tend to mean enough to melt nicely over whatever you are adding it to.

As a rule of thumb, go for around 12 to 25 grams, or one to two tablespoons of butter. But, you really need to judge for yourself. Do you think it needs a little more or a little less?

Some recipes may even refer to a “large knob” or “small knob.” This means, just a little butter or a generous dollop. This could be anywhere from one to four tablespoons. A “tiny knob” might be only about 1/2 teaspoon. In fact, a knob and a dollop are similar measurements but “dollop” is reserved for less solid ingredients like sour cream, yogurt, jam, etc. In any case, a large heaping teaspoonful of soft butter or sour cream is a dollop, and this corresponds to a knob. You do not need to be precise.

Should You Use Unsalted Butter?

What you need to understand is that chefs tend to add tons of butter to everything. Especially at the end of cooking. It makes things taste better, richer, and feel better in your mouth. You are not going to mess it up by adding a little too much, especially if the butter is meant to melt.

So, what if I told you to add a knob of butter to a pancake? What I mean is add enough to melt nicely over the pancake. You aren’t going to know the exact amount, but generally, you’d put on about half a tablespoon, and if you like it rich, a whole tablespoon.

The “Knob” Measurement Comes From a Time When Ingredient Measurements Were Imprecise

The “knob” is leftover from very early cookbooks like those by authors like Fannie Merrit Farmer, where exact measurements were never given. In a cookbook from the 1800s, you were just as likely to be told to “add a sufficient amount of butter” as opposed to any kind of exact amount.

However, you might also be told, as Andrew Smith mentions in Eating History, to add “a knob of butter the size of an egg.” Likewise, “a walnut-sized knob of butter” was a frequent instruction, which is about two tablespoons, give or take.

How Much is a Pinch? What About Other Seasonings?

In those early cookbooks, the amounts of ingredients were roughly estimated by sight, but there was also the assumption that the cook already had some basic knowledge. A knob of butter was about as accurate as a “blob” of butter. See also Influential and Important Early American Cookbooks

This is not to say that all early cookbooks were without accurate measurements. Amelia Simmons in American Cookery (1796) gave flour and sugar measurements by weight (suggesting perhaps people had scales).

She also used measurements like “a gill,” which corresponds to about 1/2 cups (1/4 pint, or 4 fluid ounces). And, in The Virginia Housewife (1824), Mary Randolph calls for flour both in pounds and by quarts.

The word knob doesn’t only refer to a doorknob and don’t think a knob of butter needs to be as big as a doorknob. It really can be any rounded ball, or, as in this case, a lump.

You might have heard of a “bed-knob.” That is the rounded ball at the top of a bedpost. Of course, we also have volume knobs, as on radio or TV…or at least we used to.

In other words, a knob is a general word for a smallish, roundish, lump of some kind, but it is not a specific measurement. Knob is also British slang for part of a man’s anatomy. You can guess.