Cookie butter

One US cup of cookie butter weighs 288 grams (10.2 ounces). Going the other way, 100 grams is about 0.35 cups.

Also called Biscoff spread, Lotus Biscoff cookie butter, speculoos spread, speculoos cookie butter, Biscoff cookie butter, cookie spread.

A cup of cookie butter weighs 288 g (10.2 oz), a density of 1.22 g/mL, and King Arthur's figure is right. Store-brand labels print 37 g per 2 tablespoons, 296 g per cup, and the spread's own composition predicts about 293 g with no air in it. Lotus's US label, 30 g per 2 tablespoons (240 g per cup), is the weight of 2 tablespoons of water and is rejected.

Cookie butter is a spread made from ground speculoos, the spiced caramelized biscuits Lotus sells as Biscoff, blended with vegetable oil and sugar to the texture of peanut butter. Lotus Biscoff Cookie Butter lists Biscoff cookies, canola oil, sugar, soy lecithin and citric acid; Trader Joe's Speculoos Cookie Butter and most supermarket brands follow the same recipe, in creamy and crunchy versions.

King Arthur's ingredient weight chart lists cookie butter at 1/4 cup = 2 1/2 oz = 72 g, 288 g per cup. Store-brand labels from Great Value, Aldi's Specially Selected, Meijer, H-E-B and Sprouts, as transcribed by FatSecret and Eat This Much, all give 2 tablespoons as 37 g, 296 g per cup. The FDA reference amount for nut butters and dessert spreads is 2 tablespoons, a volume, so these labels weigh a measured volume. The two figures agree within 3%.

Lotus's US label gives 2 tablespoons as 30 g, 13 servings in a 14.1 oz jar, and Kroger's Private Selection prints the same 30 g. Lotus's label carries the same energy, about 5.7 kcal per gram, as the 37 g store-brand labels, so the food is the same and only the weight claimed for 2 tablespoons differs. Two tablespoons hold 29.6 mL, and 30 g is what that volume of water weighs. A spread of oil, sugar and biscuit cannot be as light as water.

The physical check, from Lotus's own composition (UK Biscoff Smooth, per 100 g: fat 38.1 g, carbohydrate 57.0 g of which sugars 36.8 g, protein 2.9 g): the fat takes up about 42 mL at 0.915 g/mL, the sugar about 23 mL at 1.59 g/mL, the remaining biscuit starch about 13 mL at 1.5 g/mL, and protein and salt about 3 mL. That is about 81 mL per 100 g, 1.24 g/mL, or 293 g per cup if no air is stirred in. Peanut butter, about half fat, weighs 258 g per cup on this site; cookie butter has less of the light fat and more sugar and starch, so it should be heavier, and it is. At 1.01 g/mL, the 30 g label would need about a fifth of the jar to be air, and cookie butter is a dense paste, not a whipped one.

Practical guidance: use 288 g per cup, 72 g per quarter cup and 18 g per tablespoon. A 14.1 oz (400 g) jar holds about 1 1/3 cups. Creamy and crunchy versions carry the same labels and are treated as one figure here. Two level tablespoons weigh about 36 g, a fifth more than the 30 g on the Lotus label, so a serving counted by the spoon carries about a fifth more calories than that label says; weigh it if the number matters.

The following published figures for cookie butter are rejected here, with the physics or standards reasoning behind each rejection on its own page:

• Lotus Biscoff Cookie Butter (producer label): 240 g per cup