全 141 件のコメント

[–]sparchee 102ポイント103ポイント  (4子コメント)

It is much harder to remove salt from a dish. If you start or finish a recipe with unsalted butter, you have the control over the salt level.

[–]arkain123 6ポイント7ポイント  (3子コメント)

Only if you're talking about savory foods. It's pretty much impossible to salt sweets after they're done.

[–]beka13 10ポイント11ポイント  (2子コメント)

Even if you salt before naming you control the salt level better using unsalted butter.

[–]arkain123 3ポイント4ポイント  (1子コメント)

I'm just saying that the "make it with less salt and decide if you want to add more later" approach only works with salty foods.

[–]sparchee 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

Yes, I agree. Maybe if you are making a sauce like caramel to drizzle on. Then you can change the over-all flavor of the dish by making it a salted caramel sauce. Otherwise, you're kind of SOL.

[–]Lucretian 123ポイント124ポイント  (19子コメント)

Often, it's precisely that reason: to control seasoning.

[–]BCSounds 34ポイント35ポイント  (8子コメント)

I absolutely agree here - I really dislike salted butter. If I ate it plain then sure salted is fine, but 99% of the time I use it for cooking. It typically has way more salt than I'd like as well, making seasoning a nightmare especially if you use butter at the finishing stages.

[–]dreezyforsheezy 21ポイント22ポイント  (7子コメント)

""nightmare". Really?

[–]geneticswag 11ポイント12ポイント  (5子コメント)

totally - if you're working on a seasoning that's proportionally higher fat to salt you're in for a bad time with salted butter.

[–]thejunipertree 2ポイント3ポイント  (4子コメント)

Like what?

[–]jofijk 12ポイント13ポイント  (2子コメント)

hollandaise, bechamel and it's derivatives, pretty much any sauce where butter/roux is a main component.

[–]thejunipertree 20ポイント21ポイント  (1子コメント)

Couldn't you just not use not as much salt?

The amount of salt in salted butter is actually rather low, all things considered. Just don't add any to what you're doing and it's totally fine.

I make hollandaise, alfredo, risotto, etc. all the time, exclusively use salted butter, and have never had a lick of trouble, let alone "nightmare" levels of difficulty, producing a properly flavored dish with great success.

[–]joebates25 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

I think its more of a theoretical notion that the salt is too much. Like, technically, because you can't directly measure how much salt is in it, you can't have 100% control over the amount of salt, but realistically, it doesn't make a difference (of course, sweet foods may be a different story)

[–]geneticswag 4ポイント5ポイント  (0子コメント)

Risotto, alfredo, finishing fish or chops...

[–]DarylHannahMontana 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

"nightmare" isn't that hard a criteria to literally live up to.

if someone says "it's like hell on earth" or "worse than death" or even "my worst nightmare" that might be hyperbolic, but simple nightmares are pretty commonplace.

[–]luipfroots 13ポイント14ポイント  (9子コメント)

Also, adding salt too early can significantly change a dish. Scrambled eggs, for example, will come out watery if you salt them too early.

[–]Mortonator 21ポイント22ポイント  (7子コメント)

According to Gordon Ramsay, yes, but it doesn't seem to happen in reality.

http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/04/does-pre-salting-eggs-make-them-tough.html

[–]mamakawama 1ポイント2ポイント  (1子コメント)

I thought he claimed it made them tough?

[–]grg46 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUP7U5vTMM0

This is what they are talking about I think. After watching that video and making them myself, I never cooked eggs the same again.

[–]rajriddles 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Gritzer's only variable was how long the salt and eggs sat together before cooking. He did not test cooking without any salt - Ramsay's method. Personally, I doubt you would see much difference, but still an incomplete result.

[–]luipfroots -3ポイント-2ポイント  (3子コメント)

I don't think they're on the same page. The author of the article is adding salt before cooking and Gordon Ramsay adds it when they're nearly done cooking.

[–]axel_val 8ポイント9ポイント  (2子コメント)

That's the point. You said adding salt too early can change the dish. Ramsey adds his at the end to "avoid" this, but the author of the article adds it before cooking to prove that adding salt early doesn't do anything to the eggs.

[–]luipfroots -2ポイント-1ポイント  (1子コメント)

But he beat and salted all his samples before cooking. The only variable was when he added the salt. Ramsay beats his eggs in the pot and salts at the end. The article does not compare to Ramsay's method.

[–]axel_val 4ポイント5ポイント  (0子コメント)

adding salt too early can significantly change a dish

salted all his samples before cooking

only variable was when he added the salt

I fail to see how this doesn't prove the point.

[–]TheBongler 16ポイント17ポイント  (1子コメント)

The only time I prefer salted butter is for pancakes and waffles topping. Salty butter and maple syrup great combination.

[–]Level100ProtWarrior 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

Aye, salted butter is just more convenient for breakfast, corn, etc.

[–]dkuznetsov 9ポイント10ポイント  (1子コメント)

If I want salted butter, but only have unsalted one, I'll just sprinkle salt on it. I wouldn't be able to do reverse. Thus, I almost never buy salted butter.

[–]TheAntiPedantic[S] 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Fair enough. I just find that I always end up adding salt to a dish, even after using salted butter.

[–]YCYC 20ポイント21ポイント  (9子コメント)

My granma was a farmer and despised salted butter. She used to say "a salted butter is a missed butter". Also the salt allows for a larger amount of water retention. During WWII she saw so many crooks selling shitty butter on the black market.

[–]robvas 12ポイント13ポイント  (1子コメント)

My grandma would butter her bread, then sprinkle salt on it

[–]RolandIce 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

Good bread and butter/olive oil and salt. It does not have to be complicated to be good.

[–]BigScarySmokeMonster 9ポイント10ポイント  (3子コメント)

I'm picturing a dude wearing a trenchcoat with a bunch of inside pockets, all full of illicit butter.

"Pssst, hey, lady, wanna buy some butter, see?"

[–]YCYC 6ポイント7ポイント  (0子コメント)

Naw black market during WWII was more like a barter system from your garage or cellar. My other granma sold a kilo of coffee for one bike.

[–]sarsXdave 1ポイント2ポイント  (1子コメント)

There was margarine smuggling in Canada for decades:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margarine#Canada_2

The food-dye capsules as a workaround for not being able to sell butter-colored margarine in the US, was actually a story I first learned about from an old family friend. Funny how lobbying to make the appearance less buttery cut consumption down so much.

[–]autowikibot 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Section 18. Canada 2 of article Margarine:


In Canada, margarine was banned from 1886 until 1948, though this ban was temporarily lifted from 1917 until 1923 due to dairy shortages. Nevertheless, bootleg margarine was produced in the neighboring Dominion of Newfoundland from whale, seal, and fish oil by the Newfoundland Butter Company and was smuggled to Canada where it was widely sold for half the price of butter. The Supreme Court of Canada lifted the margarine ban in 1948 in the Margarine Reference. That year, Newfoundland negotiated its entry into the Canadian Confederation - one of its three non-negotiable conditions for union with Canada was a constitutional protection for the new province's right to manufacture margarine.


Interesting: Imperial Margarine | Sana (margarine brand) | Margarine Unie | Stork (margarine)

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[–]starlinguk 3ポイント4ポイント  (2子コメント)

My mother used to buy rancid salted butter from the farm. Why she didn't taste it is beyond me, it was so awful I still remember the taste 35 years later.

[–]YCYC 1ポイント2ポイント  (1子コメント)

There a use for this, but one has to use it sparsely.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smen

[–]Lazdaa 5ポイント6ポイント  (0子コメント)

I've heard salted for food and unsalted for baking.

[–]Jendall 10ポイント11ポイント  (21子コメント)

Doesn't unsalted butter go bad faster?

[–]thrips47 -3ポイント-2ポイント  (20子コメント)

Not really:http://www.four-h.purdue.edu/downloads/Dairy%20Food/Facts%20about%20Butter-DMI.pdf Butter just must meet the FDA min. of 80% butterfat. USDA grades http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/getfile?dDocName=STELDEV3004470. European butters are much more varied.

[–]shaun3000 34ポイント35ポイント  (19子コメント)

Re-read that article. Salted in fridge: 2 months. Unsalted in fridge: 2 weeks.

Another fun trick with salted butter is you can leave it out, unrefrigerated, and it won’t spoil. Yay salt.

[–]starlinguk 29ポイント30ポイント  (13子コメント)

The unsalted butter in my fridge has been there for months. Nothing wrong with it.

[–]lightoasis 12ポイント13ポイント  (11子コメント)

I leave unsalted butter out for weeks at a time with no issue that I know of. Hopefully I'm not poisoning myself but I'm still alive.

[–]shaun3000 1ポイント2ポイント  (9子コメント)

Well you’d know if it had spoiled. I’m too scared to leave unsalted out.

[–]lightoasis 8ポイント9ポイント  (8子コメント)

I honestly never thought twice about it. Current one has been out for at least a month and it's not spoiled.

I always leave butter out for toast. How else are people spreading it? It rips apart your bread if you go straight from fridge to toast.

[–]Itsaghast 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

Just very thin chips of butter and put on top of the toast. Cold, unmelted butter is yum.

[–]fsmpastafarian 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

Yeah I leave unsalted out on the counter in a butter bell all the time, and keep other sticks of unsalted in the fridge for months at a time. I didn't even know it supposedly went bad faster - I've never had a problem.

[–]shaun3000 0ポイント1ポイント  (5子コメント)

My wife introduced me to that concept and it changed my life. But we leave salted out. 1) It tastes better as a spread, IMHO, and 2) The salt kills bacterias. At least that’s what I tell myself.

[–]lightoasis 0ポイント1ポイント  (4子コメント)

My wife tells me unsalted is healthier for us so that's why we buy it. But I agree salted tastes way better.

[–]saltyjohnson -3ポイント-2ポイント  (3子コメント)

The only thing that makes unsalted butter less bad for you is the lack of salt. It's still a big hunk of high-calorie saturated fat.

[–]ellius 4ポイント5ポイント  (0子コメント)

You would definitely know if it had gone bad.

[–]thrips47 -2ポイント-1ポイント  (0子コメント)

That is because storage is more likely to affect flavor. Salt masks off flavors. Period. The differences that salt makes are not very much regarding physical properties, only sensory.

[–]saml01 3ポイント4ポイント  (1子コメント)

Apparently you have never heard of the butter bell.

butter without preservatives and is not exposed to extreme temps will last for a month without refrigeration. 3 in the fridge.

The stuff you buy in the store will stay fresh even longer.

[–]anonanon1313 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Or a year in the freezer.

[–]theblackhand 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

I leave my unsalted on the counter, so does my mom, and her mom, and everyone in my family in charge of that sort of thing. Were all OK. Granted, Im a butter slut. A stick will only last a few days.

[–]holycrapple 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Thank you! Reading all the hate on salted butter here and thought, "doesn't anyone keep a butter fish on their counter anymore?"

Maybe everyone loves in too warm of a climate to consider it, but we always have a stick in our dish, a few inches from the stove.

[–]thrips47 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

This is not because of food safety. Salt can mask off-flavors. The science has been around for decades. Here is more on butter: one sciencey and one not :http://mmbr.asm.org/content/5/4/337.full.pdf http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18675-2004Nov2.html

[–]Bocconcini 4ポイント5ポイント  (1子コメント)

I've noticed a difference in pie crust, and crusts when using salted butter vs unsalted. They never turn out quite right. I always bake with unsalted, but mostly cook with salted.

[–]TheAntiPedantic[S] 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

I don't bake much (and when I do, mostly bread) so it removes that reason to keep unsalted around.

[–]adambulb 31ポイント32ポイント  (30子コメント)

The only reason I'd ever use salted butter is to spread on some bread. It always seemed weird to me that stores carry an even amount of salted and unsalted, when there's virtually no application for salted. I always just assumed it was a holdover from when salt had to be added as a preservative.

[–]asad137 63ポイント64ポイント  (13子コメント)

That's funny. I never use unsalted butter, even for cooking and baking (I generally leave out any salt a baking recipe calls for).

Then again, I really really like salt, and I always add more even at the end of cooking so the minuscule amount in butter gets lost in the noise. If you look at something like Land'O'Lakes Salted butter, the amount of salt in one tablespoon is 90mg -- or 0.02 teaspoons worth of table salt. Which is almost completely negligible when cooking.

[–]hamhead 6ポイント7ポイント  (2子コメント)

(I generally leave out any salt a baking recipe calls for).

So you give up control of the amount of salt in the dish? That seems pointless...

[–]asad137 2ポイント3ポイント  (1子コメント)

Yeah, I realized after I posted that it seems a bit silly to not add the salt in the recipe given the tiny amount of salt in butter.

That said, I don't really bake that much. When I cook, I simply salt to taste.

[–]el_smurfo 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

Its pretty uniform how much salt per TBS of salted butter. I just adjust to accommodate. I never buy unsalted and bake every weekend with rave reviews

[–]NeoMoose 12ポイント13ポイント  (6子コメント)

I really can't even taste the salt in most salted butters. Heresy, but i see butter as just butter whether it is salted or not. These stats seem to back that. .02 teaspoons is nothing.

[–]Bocconcini 13ポイント14ポイント  (4子コメント)

Have you ever tried tasting a salted and then tasting an unsalted? I only ask because unsalted almost tastes like nothing to me, like having toast with salted vs unsalted I notice a huge difference.

[–]hijomaffections 6ポイント7ポイント  (3子コメント)

Is there even a point to unsalted buttered toast?

[–]DreadNephromancer 33ポイント34ポイント  (0子コメント)

Sometimes you just want to see what disappointment tastes like.

[–]ChrissiQ 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

I use unsalted for everything. And I like salt. But unsalted butter on toast is good too!.... Maybe I use more butter than most people. I don't just use a tiny greasy smear. I slather on a nice layer. Probably at least a millimetre or two thick. It tastes divine. And no, I'm not fat :P

[–]thefreakyorange 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

I didn't think it would make a difference. All I had was unsalted butter because I was baking, and then I decided to make toast. I put some of that butter on there, and bit into the bread. I remember just staring at the piece of bread incredulously, and then trying to remember back to 30 seconds before that to make sure I had actually buttered the toast.

TL;DR: Always butter toast with salted butter.

[–]luellasindon 7ポイント8ポイント  (0子コメント)

You can't taste the difference because your diet is so high in sodium already. Try a reduced-sodium diet for a while, then try to use salted butter. You'll be able to tell the difference instantly.

[–]HRP 4ポイント5ポイント  (2子コメント)

I always buy salted.

You're going to salt everything anyways, and if you're really that concerned about over-salting, it's not difficult to do some quick math and figure out how much salt you should subtract from the called for amount.

[–]EzzeJenkins -1ポイント0ポイント  (1子コメント)

It is kind of difficult because every salted butter has a different salt-to-butter ratio.

[–]HRP 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Um. Read the package.

[–]dewprisms 6ポイント7ポイント  (7子コメント)

I really only use unsalted butter for baking where it is much more important to be able to control your salt content because it is more difficult to recover from. I don't use much salt at all in dishes I cook that contain butter so I don't need to keep two kinds of butter in my fridge.

[–]starlinguk 1ポイント2ポイント  (3子コメント)

I use salted butter for baking, it brings out the flavour.

[–]eviljolly 6ポイント7ポイント  (0子コメント)

You can still add salt separately. It's about being more precise about how much you add, not omitting it entirely.

[–]dewprisms 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

I'm not terribly adept at baking so I tend to follow instructions closely unless it is something I have made a few times. I also have an issue where there's a fine line between "perfect amount of salt" and "oh god this makes me want to vomit" so I err on the side of caution with baking. :)

[–]Jest2 -1ポイント0ポイント  (0子コメント)

Yes! No one will agree with me on this, but, I think this too. I encourage people to taste test a baked good (lemon bars are great for this test) made with un-salt, and the next bite with a little dash salt. They're amazed at the difference usually.

[–]JorusC 0ポイント1ポイント  (2子コメント)

Why are you keeping butter in your fridge? It doesn't go bad. Just get a butter dish to keep random crap off of it, and you're good. It's so much easier to spread at room temp!

[–]dewprisms 3ポイント4ポイント  (1子コメント)

I buy boxes of four sticks, and I always keep one out on the counter in the butter dish. The others stay in the fridge until it's their turn to go in the dish and await their fate.

[–]JorusC 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Okay, cool. I do the same thing.

[–]PoorPolonius 7ポイント8ポイント  (0子コメント)

My local grocery store stocks far less unsalted butter...and it's sold out nearly every time I go shopping. Such a pain in the ass.

[–]J973 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

I only use unsalted butter when it's used a ton in a recipe that you don't want too salty, like cookies. From what I have read (on the internet) in the United States that overall salted is more popular for average customers.

[–]wmurray003 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

...it's not even that salty. I usually use Salted butter while paying attention to how many "salted" seasonings/ingredients I add to the recipe.

[–]Sp4m 4ポイント5ポイント  (1子コメント)

when there's virtually no application for salted

Wait a minute. A lot of places where I shop groceries don't even carry unsalted butter. In terms of sales to consumers I think it's easily 95/5 in favour of salted butter (a guess). I can see why unsalted butter makes sense in the food industry but in a regular home kitchen it simply doesn't. I've never come across a recipe which would be significantly altered by using salted instead of unsalted butter.

[–]itnever3nds 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

Funny, this is totally the other way around where I live (Austria). There is salted butter in the stores, but I don't know anyone who buys it and I have never come across a receipt that asks for salted or non-salted butter specifically because unsalted is simply the norm.

[–]JohnMatt 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Salted outsells unsalted by a wide margin. Something like 5-1 in my experience.

[–]Cendeu 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

To me, it's the opposite. I've always used salted, and have never thought of any applications for unsalted. I wondered how they sold as much as salted.

To me, unsalted has absolutely no flavour. I've started using it recently in baking, but if I'm cooking I'd like my butter to actually have a taste.

[–]krum 7ポイント8ポイント  (2子コメント)

I always use unsalted butter and add salt as required. The only reason salted butter is even a thing is the longer shelf life.

[–]Cendeu 7ポイント8ポイント  (1子コメント)

The only reason salted butter is even a thing is the longer shelf life.

I thought this was an untrue myth.

Salted is great for anything that requires your butter to actually have a flavour, imo.

[–]chefhanabal 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

The way it was explained to me in my cooking classes is that salt is a flavor enhancer. This means that the companies can use slightly lower grade ingredients and still have a flavorful product, while with unsalted, you have to have higher quality ingredients to reach the same level of flavor. If i ever need to have salted butter (ie, bread) I just sprinkle some on top.

[–]accidental_tourist 3ポイント4ポイント  (4子コメント)

I've never used salted butter. How is the taste different from simply adding salt to unsalted butter?

[–]TheAntiPedantic[S] 0ポイント1ポイント  (3子コメント)

It's the same.

[–]uwsdwfismyname 2ポイント3ポイント  (2子コメント)

And yet you don't understand unsalted butter.... Bizarre

This isn't even thinking about texture that salt can give.

[–]TheAntiPedantic[S] 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

It's less salt I have to add, and if I want to use melted butter on, say, crabs, I have a hell of a time getting salt to dissolve in it if it didn't arrive already salted.

[–]uwsdwfismyname 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Not at all. It is simple to add salt to the butter for that purpose. I mean you're already going through the process to clarify the butter just add the salt right there.

[–]chicklette 3ポイント4ポイント  (5子コメント)

I feel most American palette are geared toward saltiness, so i rarely use unsalted butter. Pie crust maybe, swiss buttercream for sure, maybe a few other applications. Salt really brings out the flavor in foods, and most recipes that call for unsalted butter are not salted enough, imo. That said, i usually use kirkland butter, which is lightly salted. For comparison, I have some kerrygold salted butter and whoa, is it salty. I could never use that for cooking.

[–]JrMint 2ポイント3ポイント  (2子コメント)

This seems quite cultural. In France, salted butter is the default. Butters even list the origin of their salt (sea salt) as a marketing indicator. Salt from Noirmoutier, Guérande…

[–]chicklette 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

So in France, cooking and baking recipes use salted butter?

[–]JrMint 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

It's certainly used in chocolate desserts and several kinds of pies in terms of baking. I did a cursory search on a popular recipe website and there are a lot more hits for salted butter than unsalted. It might be regional, but salted butter seems much more popular.

[–]TheAntiPedantic[S] 1ポイント2ポイント  (1子コメント)

Come to think of it, when using some higher-end salted butter, I have ended up with some pretty salty hollandaise before. That higher end salted butter is often saltier than store brand salted butter (I usually use Whole Foods store brand, which is surprisingly affordable) seems to fly in the face of claims that unsalted butter is somehow higher quality, though.

[–]chicklette -1ポイント0ポイント  (0子コメント)

Agree! Seems the more I pay, the saltier it is. I love the kerrygold,but its really only good for spreading on bread. I used it in mashed potatoes last night and they were a hair too salty.

[–]McGuirk808 4ポイント5ポイント  (0子コメント)

Keep things simple.

Salted butter is table butter. It's delicious. Let people it to prepared food.

Unsalted butter is cooking butter. You add butter for an oil or for buttery flavor.

Use butter for butter, add salt for saltiness. Don't mix the two, it makes it harder to season properly.

[–]Quiggibub 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

I have never, ever used unsalted butter after finding out how dull it tastes.

[–]tgraefj 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

I think some of it may have to do with the chemistry of what you're cooking. Not really an issue unless you're baking though.

[–]BlueSky1877 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Unsalted is your default go-to cooking butter. It simply lacks salt. Salt enhances, brings out, or may make more potent some flavors. That's why salted butter is usually your table butter or people add huge amounts of salt to food to bring out flavor.

Salted butter is better for non-cooking like on bread or pasta. You can use it for cooking! But it'll add a lot of salt to the recipe which might make sauces taste extra salty.

I say go for what you like. I love salty foods so I use salted butter. When cooking for others, unsalted butter and put salted butter on the table.

[–]Sleisl 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Unsalted for cooking, salted for eating.

[–]nf5 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

It matters in baking not so much cooking eggs

Relax

[–]breaddict 2ポイント3ポイント  (1子コメント)

These days we see the logic of having control over seasoning using unsalted butter, but salted butter has been more common in typical American households for a long time. Most families didn't buy more than one kind of butter, and salted was what we had. It's what we used on toast, dinner rolls, popcorn, corn on the cob, cooked vegetables, etc. When I started baking in the 1970s, mainstream recipes called for salted butter, and the cookbook I learned to cook with, my mom's 1952 Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook, called for salted butter. If a recipe said "butter" it meant salted, and unsalted was specified as unsalted. This can be confusing now as unsalted butter is becoming more widely used but we're still using and sharing old recipes.

[–]TheAntiPedantic[S] 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Thanks for the background. I can see how unsalted would give more flexibility. Cooking (as opposed to baking) is generally agnostic. Very few recipes include so many salty ingredients that they do not require additional salt before serving, and would be ruined by the use of salted butter.

I'm most interested in the claim I see a few times in this thread that unsalted butter may be fresher or contain better ingredients.

[–]roadshoe 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

I'll add that the salt acts as a preservative, so given the shorter shelf life unsalted butter tends to be fresher than salted butter.

[–]quaintspider015[🍰] 1ポイント2ポイント  (2子コメント)

P.S. Since you probably have salted butter on hand, you should make some French chocolate chip cookies :).

[–]TheAntiPedantic[S] 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

ooh, never heard of this. I have a pot luck to go to later on. Does this recipe look right? http://www.thecrepesofwrath.com/2011/06/29/infamous-jacques-torres-chocolate-chip-cookies/

[–]quaintspider015[🍰] 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Yes! Perfect. The recipes I've seen call for salted butter in addition to the fleur de sel.

[–]gradient_x 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

This is one of those topics that I find maddeningly pretentious in the community ... you must use unsalted butter or you're a rube who's incapable of seasoning correctly. There's about 1/4 - 1/3 tsp of salt in a stick of butter. Big fucking deal. With the exception of some baked goods, EVERYTHING you're going to cook is going to require more salt than what comes from butter, and if you're seasoning to tastes it simply won't matter. At all. If you can find good butter that's salted, use it because the salt protects the flavor of the butter, and extra salt added to almost everything your'e cooking is unimportant if you're tasting as you cook ...

Now ask me how I feel about fucking cast iron ...

[–]Shiranaru 0ポイント1ポイント  (2子コメント)

I've also been told that since salt is a flavor enhancer, unsalted butter requires a higher degree of quality.

[–]TheAntiPedantic[S] 1ポイント2ポイント  (1子コメント)

It might, but not necessarily. I wonder if anyone has any evidence for this claim, because you aren't the first to make it here. I would be interested to know.

[–]Shiranaru 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

I heard it from a food scientist I know, but I don't know if that's an industry-wide tendency.

[–]ThatSample 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

salted butter has a higher water content than unsalted butter.

[–]marylou5 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

I can't tell the difference between salted & unsalted butter. I switch back and forth randomly and it never makes any difference that I can tell. Am I the only one?

[–]lucius_pixel -1ポイント0ポイント  (0子コメント)

Sugar and Butter

[–]cYzzie 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

its always better if you have control ... you can add as many salt you want to unsalted butter ... and the kind of salt you want - you have control.

esp. in baking which is more chemistry then cooking, have your ingredients as untainted as possible, if you really want to "learn" how your recipes behave etc. and how to get the maximum "wow" effect from them

[–]jeexbit 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

I always use unsalted butter for cooking - if I want more salt, I add it.

[–]jewpanda 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

What /u/Lucretian said.

Allows more control over the flavor of the dish. I'm no expert, but with all of the chemical reactions happening while cooking, using unsalted butter can just help that variable more.

If you were after a certain shade of blue for painting for instance, would you prefer to buy it pre mixed, or mix it together yourself to get exactly what you want?

Happy cooking! Cheers!

Edit: spelling

[–]raymond4 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Butter in baking is to reduce extra salt in the recipe. So if recipe calls for butter sugar and salt. Salt is added to bring out flavour of sugar and butter. If salt is in butter some of or all the second salt may be used. However in some instances it is there to assist with structure as salt acts upon dough structure, as in bread baking. In stove top or non baking applications slated butter has a lower smoke point and reduces shelf life especially if making ghee or clarified butter. It causes oils to oxidise that is why insulted butter is preferred. If you want salted butter us it as a condiment at the table.then use unsalted for everything else.

[–]Skeeow 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

I've read that the amount of salt in butter varies slightly, so if you're baking then it helps in having more precise measurements of salt.

[–]sean_incali 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Too much salt will ruin a dish. Salted butter was a way to preserve the butter back in the old days. Now we don't need to so we use unsalted butter for the butter flavor.

And if you think unsalted butter is flavorless, you really need to buy a different brand of unsalted butter of learn what butter taste like.

Flavor isn't saltiness.

[–]libbykino 0ポイント1ポイント  (1子コメント)

Which type of butter is the "default" butter? When a recipe just says like "4 tbsp butter" without specifying which type, what kind am I supposed to use?

[–]ChiliWillie 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

I'd stick with unsalted. You can always add salt to a recipe if needed

[–]ryananderson 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

What a weird thread.

Unsalted butter = butter Salted butter = butter + some salt

You can control the salt level with unsalted much better than you can with salted. Recipes call for it because that's what they've tested with, and there's no universal salt reduction formula for using salted butter.

[–]kevmo77 -2ポイント-1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Salted butter generally has less fat content. Fat being a key ingredient in baking, baking recipes will call for the butter with higher content: unsalted.

[–]Dont_Order_A_Slayer 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

I don't like salted butter on anything. I can salt things myself and control the levels. But even then, nothing beats the cream flavor of unsalted, and rarely do things suffer with its inclusion.

But, for cooking, you really don't want to use salted butter for a few reasons.

1) and it might've been mentioned before, the water content is different. You're not getting the full, intended effect of the milkfat for the recipe you're using it in, if using salted butter.

2) There -is- a decidedly different taste between the two. You get butter flavor from unsalted, you get half (sometimes less) of that, with salted butter.

For whatever it's worth, I'm classically trained as a chef and have a fair deal of work/life experience to base my opinions from.

Eat what you like, but don't contribute to the death of who you cook for my adding more salt than you need to.

[–]giveitago -3ポイント-2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Also, unsalted butter will mostly be fresher because salt acts as a preservative. Unsalted butter isn't flavorless, it's a your palate issue.

[–]CCV21 -2ポイント-1ポイント  (0子コメント)

The amount of salt in the butter may vary and that can throw off the taste in a recipe. The biggest benefit to using unsalted butter is health related. Using unsalted butter can significantly reduce the amount of salt in a person's diet. Especially if a person is consuming a pound of butter per month.