hippytea wrote:

I've seen this in multiple recipes and it has always puzzled me. Does anyone know a good reason for it?

I use salted butter, as that's what I have in the fridge, and just add less salt than the recipe says.

Salting butter preserves it which means it can sit in the shop a lot longer than unsalted butter.  It may not be the case in your shops, but for most of us, the unsalted butter being sold is much fresher than the salted butter.

In recipes, whenever butter is called for, it should be unsalted because the amount of salt in salted butter varies.  It makes a big difference in baking in particular because you are not tasting the uncooked batter and therefore, are just guessing at how much salt to add.  To get the best results, use unsalted butter and add the exact amount of salt called for in the recipe.

eta:  I had to reduce the salt in my diet while recovering from an injury.  I'm used to salted butter on my toast, but I got used to the fresher, unsalted butter and I could really taste the difference in freshness.  And, it does reduce the salt in your diet a lot to take small steps like that.

Last edited by MsPablo (Sat 29 Dec 12 3:34pm)

hippytea wrote:

MsPablo wrote:

It makes a big difference in baking in particular because you are not tasting the uncooked batter

Speak for yourself...

Unsalted butter gives a better flavour when baking and I always thought that adding a pinch of salt helped with the way the eggs reacted and also added a little to the taste.
But I might be wrong about the salt !.

As MsP says the salt in salted butter is there as a preservative .

I just use salted butter because if i'm having it on bread or scones then I prefer the taste of it. No point having two in the fridge. If I did a whole lot of baking I'd probably use unsalted and then likely not even bother adding the salt.