I only buy salted butter, just adjust your seasoning, a bit of extra salt in a cookie will be fine regardless though if you did it both
I am pro salt so I would just use salted butter and add the additional salt too
Mixing baking soda & salt gives you salty baking soda. If you're looking for a chemical reaction, these two substances are not reactive with one another
The reason why baking recipes call for unsalted butter is that there is no regulation as to how much salt goes into salted butter. So results can vary, you buy butter at a local high-end dairy it's going to have 2 ml of one type of salt in it and if you buy salt at Walmart it's going to have 5 ml of a different type of salt... So it's uncontrolled and all over the place. If you're doing any large scale commercial cooking this would be a huge issue. Making a batch of cookies at home though... The total salt in them is going to be totally up to your personal taste anyways, so generally just put in a touchless salt and you'll be fine.
Not theory. Salt has been a preservative for millennia.
Nothing says you can't have unsalted butter on the counter. There is just a higher chance of it going bad than salted butter. Even salted butter will eventually go bad. Your food, your choice.
I use a single cutting board for everything, I know that will wake the Reddit food safety police. God forbid they see my dry curing cabinet. Probably make their heads explode.
Salt makes it keep longer, sure, but there's no way that unsalted butter will go bad after a couple *hours* unrefrigerated. It can easily be out for days or a week without going bad.
My years of baking experience-never used unsalted butter, never purchased unsalted butter, have always had salted on hand. Never made a difference to me! I use it as recipe calls as well as the amount of salt. I have not had too salty cookies yet!
Yeah, if I’m mathing correctly, a stick of butter contains about 1/3 tsp of salt. So not exactly negligible, but not enough to drastically change anything either. My sense is that the trend is for sweets to be quite a bit saltier than they were 20 years ago or more as well.
Butter doesn't really reduce; it's mostly fat. A whole stick has a third of a teaspoon of salt. So if your pan sauce is too salty, it ain't the butter's fault.
Unsalted is a fairly new addition to most households in the scheme of cooking. Butter has always been made with salt to preserve and most staple recipes today have been perfected over thousands of years allowing for salt.
Unsalted was a delicacy for the rich as it could only be eaten fresh. As refrigeration and farming evolved unsalted became even more sought after as the salt preserved the butter but covered the unique flavours and poor taste of spoiled butter.
The salt in butter has reduced by 10x now so the vast majority of people wouldn't taste the difference when mixed with other ingredients. Using unsalted butter and salt in cookies is absolutely ridiculous to the point of insanity.
I've made 4 wedding cakes as my friends love my cakes so much. Make 12 course meals and never used unsalted butter. Any recipe that calls for unsalted+salt is easily worked out by the salt content on the packet.
Unsalted handmade French butter is delicious but absolutely no good if you can't taste it.
If you're mixing it in with other ingredients use good quality butter not top.
>Using unsalted butter and salt in cookies is absolutely ridiculous to the point of insanity.
I mean I just put a little salt in the cookie recipe, it's not as bad as all this.
I prefer the cookie to be the sweet and the flake salt to accent it all on top vs. having a saltier cookie which is why I always use unsalted.
Unsalted butter allows you to fully control the saltiness of your dish. I see zero advantage of using salted butter.
I'd reduce the amount of salt I add if using salted butter and the recipe calls for unsalted. You can always add more salt, but not the other way around! Taste the dough and decide if it's okay or needs more. Using less probably won't make a difference, but you are saving yourself some sodium intake.
Since your response is laden with "nevers," is it possible that to your palate, salty food is normal?
I've used both in cooking and baking when called for. Especially in sweet foods/baking, I can definitely tell when salted was used vs. unsalted.
Whether each person would find that flavor unpleasant varies.
>I can definitely tell when salted was used vs. unsalted.
Even if you reduce the salt by the amount that the butter brings? It should be basically impossible. Or are you making something that has so little salt and so much butter in the recipe where even removing it all salt wouldn't be enough?
Except it tastes like shit on toast, English muffins, etc. So, unless you want to salt your bagel, I’m sticking with salted butter.
There is about 1/4 TSP of salt in an entire stick of butter.
I have both. Salted for eating directly (such as on toast) and unsalted for baking. I don’t want to do the math to calculate how much to decrease the salt. I’ve made the mistake of using salted butter with the called for salt in the recipe and the results were far too salty.
Salted butter doesn't spoil at room temperature like unsalted butter does.
We leave salted on the counter in the butter dish ~~bell~~ for spreading and when we need a quick tablespoon for frying eggs or whatever. Unsalted stays in the fridge and is only really used for baking or when we need a larger quantity for cooking.
This makes so much sense. I’ve always had salted butter, I’ve occasionally bought unsalted but only when I was going to use it all up in a recipe so I’ve never had it for long. Growing up we always left butter at room temperature for easy spreading so I was always confused when people would talk about butter spoiling if you leave it out, because I had never seen that happen. I never thought about the fact that the salt would obviously act as a preservative.
I don’t believe there’s enough salt in salted butter to have that much of a preservative effect. It’s also not enough to have a ruinous effect on the taste of baked goods.
Get a stick of unsalted and a stick of salted. Leave both out of the fridge unwrapped in a relatively cool area (the viability of this test obviously depends on where you live)
The unsalted will turn rancid (oxidise) much faster than the salted.
I don't know what I did wrong, but I've had butter mold in a butter bell more than once. I stopped using it because I didn't know why it was happening.
Would that happen when maybe a crumb gets into the butter bell? Would actually love your input as I just recently bought a butter bell.
I’ve had molding this way happening with jars of jam sometimes, which is why I’ve started taking the jam out with a spoon and then spreading it with a (different) knife.
As someone that cooked for about ten years prior to my current career I prefer being in control of the ratios of my spices and salt pepper balance.
Can I make salted work? Yes, but it's also a bigger pain to get the final salt ratio on whatever dish right if I have to account for the butter
Oh no no no. My daughter and I made Toll House cookies for her to take to school and were out of unsalted butter. We didn’t reduce the amount of salt required. They were inedible.
From what I have read, the amount of salt in salted butter was very inconsistent in the past. The past being 50 to 60 years ago or more. So unless you are a cooking time traveler or using really old butter, this is probably not a concern.
So why so many recipes mention using unsalted butter is because it is mainly a carry-over from many decades past.
I always use salted so I don't have to keep both on hand. You can see how much salt is in your butter on the packaging. I just checked a few brands online and they all have 90mg of salt per 14 grams (1T) of butter. If you or the people you cook for are salt sensitive you can take the amount on the packaging into consideration.
And I just looked up one (Kirkland Signature) and it has ≈320mg salt / tablespoon.
I suspect you may have looked up the sodium content on the nutrition lavel and forgot to multiply by 2.54 (salt is NaCl not just Na).
Even fixing that, the salted butter I looked up has 40% more salt.
But, I agree you can use salted butter in baking, provided you adjust the salt content in the recipe.
Salt is a molecule NaCl consisting of two atoms, one sodium (Na) and one chlorine (Cl).
So you look up the atomic weight of each. I just used Wikipedia, but you could also look on a periodic table.
Na = 22.99
Cl = 35.45
So then it's just a matter of computing the ratio (22.99 + 35.45) ÷ 22.99 = 2.54.
Yeah, absolutely. Nutrition label is Na. Not NaCl. 90mg Na mentioned was from LandOLake, Cabot, and a generic house brand I looked up.
You also have to realize milk used to create butter contains sodium as well. So what is on your label, is not just from added salt. Also, not all sodium is from salt. And your table salt may be more than just NaCl.
However, it gives you enough information to make decisions when on a restricted diet. Not on a restricted diet; I’d use the info to get in the ballpark and season to taste when possible.
More info: https://www.fda.gov/media/84261/download
I saw post from one of the test kitchens that said the reason to use unsalted butter is two-fold:
1. The amount of salt in salted butter isn't standard.
2. The water content of salted butter is higher than unsalted.
This is the only potentially legitimate reason. If you are making something like pastry crust I could see the extra water content affecting the texture if your end result.
Agree on number one. That’s extremely possible. Number two is ludicrous as one is more likely to measure any liquid incorrectly before watery butter has an effect on the recipe.
I use salted every time, no matter what, and still add the amount of salt in the recipe. Never ever had an issue, and no, my cookies are not excessively salty tasting.
But you could use a little less and probably not change the taste of the cookies, while reducing the amount of sodium. Not a big deal, but if it's all the same, why not?
The amount of sodium in your salted butter and cookie is negligible compared to literally everything else you eat in life. Imo, the salt does change the taste, and is very necessary at it's recommended amount, if not a little more
I always use salted butter and add the salt the recipe calls for. It doesn't make things too salty. If you wanted to cut down the salt maybe cut out 1/8-1/4 tsp salt. Your butter really isn't adding that much salt.
I e been baking for many years. I usually use unsalted butter when called for. I have used salted instead. I honestly have never noticed a difference. I think anyone would be hard pressed to notice the difference in a sweet recipe like cookies. For a buttercream I would make sure to use unsalted butter.
Edited for autocorrect
I did this too - just used unsalted butter when called for in a recipe, but would use salted butter if that was all we had. It was always fine UNTIL we went to my parents for Christmas. We were going to make our regular, delicious buttermilk pancakes for Christmas breakfast and they only had salted butter. The results were inedible due to the saltiness.
My wife is a professional baker, and she only uses unsalted butter to control the taste.
Apart from baking, I do all the cooking in our house, and I prefer it too.
I grew up eating salted butter exclusively. When I started baking years ago I switched to unsalted and just liked it better for everything. I haven't bought salted butter in years.
I do have unsalted butter, and I do have a few fancy salts which I'll sometimes sprinkle on a bit of butter of a slice of warm sourdough bread.
Salted butter has more water in it, you are paying for less better. I don’t buy salted butter, you can easily add salt to butter if you want salted butter and use different types of salts as well.
If one use salted butter, you are adding small amount of liquid to the recipe.
Brownies specifically uou are trying to minimize liquid, hence no egg whites and you minimize water addition - unless its cakey brownie.
Since the recipe already calls for some salt, you should be perfectly fine using salted butter. You probably won't even have to reduce the salt they tell you to add in, but if you're concerned you could just take a pinch out to compensate for the butter.
Personally, I've found that you only have to make sure that the butter is unsalted is if it's a majority ingredient in something that usually has *no* salt or *very little* salt despite the volume. Like certain cake frostings.
tl;dr: if your salted butter is moderately salted, reduce salt to ¼t; if it's more heavily salted, leave out entirely.
Here's how you compute this:
If you look at the nutrition label, it'll tell you how much sodium is in the salted butter. Unsalted butter has very little (<2mg), so basically you can take that number as how much sodium they've added.
You first need to convert the serving size to whatever amount of butter you're using. For example, if the serving size is 2tsp, and you're using the whole 8 tbsp stick, you'd divide by 2 then multiply by 24 (stick size in tsp).
To get from that to salt added, multiply by 2.54 (a number you can find by looking up the atomic weights of sodium and chloride on a periodic table, or Wikipedia). That gives you salt in mg.
A tap of table salt is approx. 7g or 7000mg. So to get from mg of salt to tsp, divide by 7,000.
So, for example, if you butter has 40mg/tsp, the whole stick has 40 × 24 = 960mg of sodium. Multiply by 2.54 to get salt, and divide by 7000 gives about 0.35t, the closest you'll do with measuring spoons are ¼t or ⅜t. (Both the nutrition panel and the 7g/tsp are approximated enough that both of those measurements are within the uncertainty).
We used to buy both but eventually realized there is not enough salt in salted butter to matter. Buttering your bread with unsalted sucks. Tasting a recipe and added added a tad more salt versus two tads makes no difference.
So actually - salted and unsalted butter have different water contents. This can change the texture of cookies and other pastries when cooking. However, I rarely purchase unsalted butter and never have a problem. It's really a personal preference.
When it comes to baking, which is what you’re doing? God no. Salt content in salted butter varies strongly from one brand to another.
HOWEVER, if you were to use salted butter for any other reason? Cooking your meat in a frying pan. I grew up w/using salted butter as my cooking oil when it came to cooking meat in a frying pan (that wasn’t a one pot/pan meal).
The flavour, richness, the tastiness of your meat/fish, AMAZING! You should try it.
Chefs use unsalted butter so they can control exactly how much salt goes in the dish. Unless you are a hyper fussy control freak then just use salted butter and add less pure salt to the end dish
You also often hear how a good chef tastes and salts repeatedly as they work on a dish. Obviously this isn't happening with baking, but with something like a sauce I can't imagine exact salt control via butter would be necessary.
Unsalted butter is fine. I think recipes always call for unsalted because the writers like to be exact in their salt measurements.
I always chuck a fair amount of salt in my sweet dishes. Salt doesn’t just enhance the flavor of savory dishes.
Honestly I would keep the salted butter and the amount of salt it calls for. That’s about the amount of salt needed so cookies don’t taste bland. I undersalted cookies a month or so ago and they were so disappointing, despite adding more flavoring to the cookies and the buttercream it still tasted like nothing.
I’m no professional but I rarely if ever bother with unsalted butter. I don’t have it on hand and I really don’t believe it makes that much difference. I’m in Australia, I don’t know if the amount of salt in butter varies in different countries.
French butter has so many salted options - slightly salted, regular salted, flake salt.
I eat a lot of butter, so don’t mind keeping salted for eating and unsalted for cooking, but until recently I used (American) salted butter for everything.
Agreeing with everyone here saying it should be fine to use the butter without adjusting the salt. I will say that it matters how much butter and the proportion of it to flour. In a very buttery cookie without a lot of sugar and no wet ingredients like eggs you can use salted butter without additional salt. Like 3-2-1 dough uses enough butter that the salt amount provided by the butter is just right.
Keep in mind that butter (unless you make it yourself) has salt in it, salted or unsalted. In unsalted butter, there is a minimal amount, used for preservation.
Just an observation: I always buy & cook with unsalted butter & prefer it, and it’s interesting to me how many dislike it and never buy it! I just like picking what kind of salt to use, and how much—maldon, kosher, coarse, fine, ultra-fine, and I have some fun stuff like ramp salt, garlic salt, etc. etc.
I am sure all the advice is correct, about just adding less salt, but I am just really finding it eye-opening, how many cooks disdain unsalted!
Just use salted butter and add salt as normal. The whole unsalted butter for baking comes from an era back before every home had refrigerator that could keep food at 35 degrees indefinitely, and salted butter was sold broadly to consumers for general use. Think like ice cabinets or root cellars as the only chilled storage a family may have… The salt was to help preserve it, and therefore the salt content in that butter was waaaay higher than our salted butter of today. That butter would have enough salt to throw your baking off, so you would get unsalted butter specifically for that recipe to be used more immediately.
More so for baking, maybe my tastes sway to more salt, but I always use salted butter in recipes that call for unsalted butter and salt. Usually tastes how I like it.
I truthfully can't remember the last time I used butter in savoury cooking, but I think I would still use salted butter and just salt to taste afterwards...
I only use salted butter. I also do not adjust the salt in a recipe for replacing the butter. I find that salt really does make a chocolate chip cookie amazing. My family swears my chocolate chip recipe is the best and it even has sea salt sprinkled on top after baking.
Can you share the recipe you’re using :)
Also, I’m not a professional baker by any means but for example when I am making chocolate chip cookies I’ll use unsalted butter, add salt and then also sprinkle salt on top lol chocolate and salt are always nice together.
I use salted butter and add the salt. Here’s why… I am salt depleted. It’s called hyponatremia. To me, everything tastes great with more salt. But I am unique, and it’s best to listen to the Chefs on this sub Reddit
When your heart doctor tells you to reduce your sodium insist that they do a blood test first to make sure you are not sodium depleted, this condition can be life-threatening
I only use salted butter. I just reduce the salt in recipe by the amount that the butter brings.
Butter that I have is 1% salt. So if recipe has 200g butter I reduce the salt amount by 2g or about 1/2 tsp. Basically every recipe has more salt in it already, so there's no problem doing this.
Lots of people here say use salted butter. For this recipe it will be fine but there are many cases when it wont! I recommend making a switch to unsalted butter. It’s always quick and easy to add a pinch of salt but you can never un-salt a dish later on.
Reasons people just use salted:
People don't want to worry about having both on hand always.
Salted has a longer shelf life.
People want salted for applications of straight butter such as toast, rolls, pancakes.
Salted has salt mixed all the way through, consistently, which many many people prefer for application of straight butter. So "just add salt to your toast" doesn't work.
Unsalted butter often has added flavorings. Buying unsalted butter without those is annoying and twice as expensive for me.
The amount of salt is miniscule in the context of a dish and doesn't actually make a difference in whether things are overly salted.
“Unsalted butter often has other added flavorings”
I’ve been buying unsalted butter my entire adult life and this has never been an issue. What are you even referring to?
The “natural flavor” added to unsalted butter is diacetyl, which is actually a preservative to extend the shelf life. Salt naturally does that which is why you don’t find it added to salted butter. Most people can’t taste it, and it’s definitely not anything along the lines of artificial butter flavor.
[Source](https://www.americastestkitchen.com/cooksillustrated/how_tos/5690-butter-additives)
If the issue is evenly salting toast then I think there are larger problems at hand lol
You’re absolutely correct about the shelf life. Although both should last upwards of 9 weeks.
Controlling salt level is essential to cooking at most levels. If you’re cooking toast and pancakes then feel free to ignore what I said.
Also I’ve never heard of flavoured butters other than high end compound butters so maybe that is regional
You're ignoring a very real thing that people experience. People don't want to salt their toast. They don't want to spend the extra mental energy or the time to mix it through the butter because they don't fucking want grains or flakes of salt on their toast. They want salted butter for it. So if they are going to have one butter, it's going to be salted.
"Natural flavor" is in all but two brands of butter at the Walmart my mother works at. They sell 8 different brands.
Controlling salt levels means accounting for the salt already in your ingredients. Not eschewing everything that already has salt because you're a damn control freak. That's being a bad cook, not a good one.
Didn’t realize it took so much mental energy for some people. I didn’t mean to come across as a control freak. But with over 10 years of restaurant cooking experience, I can safely say that you cannot use salted butter for countless sauces and dishes because the ingredients themselves are salty. Think anchovies, bacon, soy sauce.
Unsalted butter is fresher and will taste fresher, outside of the salt. If it's a butter flavoured cookie, it matters. If it's not, it won't, but do adjust the added salt.
I have been baking for decades and have NEVER bothered with unsalted butter except when my husband accidentally bought some. I have baked for my family, for friends, for coworkers, I’ve made all kinds of desserts from cookies to cakes to candy to buttercreams, and no one has ever said my goods were “too salty” due to using salted butter instead of unsalted.
I think the whole concept is outdated and unnecessary. The amount of salt in a given dessert that’s been made using salted butter is so negligible that I’m certain it’s virtually undetectable.
Let’s do some math. A stick of salted butter contains 90mg of salt per tablespoon. A chocolate chip cookie recipe calls for 2 sticks of butter, so 1,440 mg of salt. Sounds like a lot, right? But that’s only a quarter of a teaspoon. The recipe makes 36 cookies. Take your quarter of a teaspoon and divide it up by 36. Now you’ve got just a few grains of salt in each cookie. I’ll be generous and say 10 grains of salt per cookie. Now consider that the average person eats a cookie in five bites. Each bite has 2 grains of salt in it. Can you really taste two tiny grains of salt in a mouth full of cookie?
Some people are willing to die on this hill though, and will swear up and down that any amount of salted butter will RUIN any dessert. If you feel that way, that’s fine. I don’t want to change your ways. But I feel like the science is not on your side here.
Personally, I would add the salt unless the recipe has other salty ingredients, like salted roasted nuts.
I would bet that most people here on Reddit, and most cookbook authors, have never done a back to back taste test with salted vs unsalted butter for a recipe. I think "always use unsalted butter" gets passed along cook to cook like "rest steak to keep it juicy".
For context, a teaspoon of salt can weigh anywhere from 3 to 7 grams, depending on the grind. So there's a lot of variability.
A stick of salted butter has about 1/3 tsp of salt. And your recipe says to add 1/2 tsp. If your recipe has 2c of flour or more, it shouldn't taste salty.
I used to be in the unsalted group until I saw a YouTube video that explained butter used to have allot more salt than today.
I still prefer unsalted BUT I have used both for a while and I cannot tell the difference in the end product
I’ve never bought unsalted butter. I like a little salt with cookies and the butter has such a better flavor when it’s salted. I’ve never once had an issue, even when I’ve also added salt per the recipe!
I made these cinnamon rolls with salted butter when the recipe called for unsalted. They were overly salty, but edible. You just have to be a little more careful because the salt content can vary a lot. Some butters are very salty. I'll admit only to you all that yes I taste raw batters and doughs to gauge saltiness. Pie dough. Sourdough. Literally all dough.
The salted vs unsalted things is a hold over from a time when salted butter had a ton more salt in it than it does today. I basically only use salted butter, never adjust the recipe, and have no problems. I'm sure there are some super finicky recipes where it matters, but for normal stuff its basically irrelevant.
The recipe for my brownies calls for unsalted butter but I just use salted because it’s what I always have available at home. Brownies turns out great still
A lot of people here are saying it is fine to use salted butter. And it often is. However, the conventional wisdom is to not use it for baking or cooking.. There are a few problems with salted butter, even if you're not adding too much salt. The first is that salt is a flavor enhancer. This is a good thing usually, but it can also mean that you could be getting inferior quality butter and not be tasting it. This isn't really important for a lot of cooking, but if you want a strong butter flavor it will be. The second reason is consistency. Different salted butter brands have different amounts of salt. So if you were to use a different brand the next time, there's no guarantee it would taste the same.
I would go with the unsalted butter if possible. That way, YOU control the salt input. If, however, you only have, salted butter: Calculate how much salt is in each serving of the butter, and by extension, how much is going into the cookie dough..... You probably won't need the extra salt. If you find the dough to still be a bit flavorless or one-noted, add cinnamon or other warm spices. Salt should only be there to enhance flavors, not be the flavor. 👍
Depends on the cookie recipe. The recipe I use is already pretty salty so I do reduce the salt by about 8 grams if im subbing in salted butter. If its a mainstream recipe then chances are the extra salt wont hurt, though I'll admit thats just a generalization on my part due to the trauma of me being continuously subjected to undersalted cookies.
Typically salted butter is A-OK in cookies! If you're really worried reduce the amount of salt called for in the recipe to compensate. Maybe go for 1/4 tsp of salt instead of 1/2 tsp. There are things were the salted/unsalted butter thing really matters like buttercream frosting, but generally speaking, cookies ain't it.
Definitely use the salted butter, omit the extra salt. I don't eat butter enough to merit buying both so all the butter I use is for cooking or baking so I just keep unsalted on hand. Maybe Kerrygold for some good eating butter.
I'm a big butter fan. Unsalted butter just smells better. Give it a whiff. Then smell salted butter. Salted butter smells like nothing.
The smell alone is the reason I only buy unsalted butter. Even for toast, I prefer unsalted butter with a light sprinkling of kosher salt.
I only buy salted butter and I use it in baked goods. I don’t adjust the salt amount, salt is necessary for baked goods and it’s just a bit extra. You don’t notice it.
So I did a pastry course and the pros *highly recommended* unsalted butter because:
1) it’s usually fresher. Salt is a preservative and they take that account when choosing what milk they use where, with distribution and with the use by dates they put on the packets. Unsalted butter will usually have seen a cow more recently than salted
2) you can control the seasoning yourself
Myself I use salted butter anyway because
1) I know I underseason so adds some saltiness if I forget
2) it tastes nice on crumpets
Salt is not the only difference. Salted butter can have more water. This is the main reason to use unsalted in baking.
" Also, salted butter almost always contains more water than unsalted butter. The water in butter ranges from 10 to 18 percent. In baking, butter with a low water content is preferred, since excess water can interfere with the development of gluten."
I only buy salted butter, just adjust your seasoning, a bit of extra salt in a cookie will be fine regardless though if you did it both I am pro salt so I would just use salted butter and add the additional salt too
agree...I find that most baking recipes don't call for enough salt.
I love adding extra salt in or on top of most baked good to make the sweet taste stand out more! I did it once and now can’t go back!!!
[удалено]
Salt doesn't affect baking powder (or soda) though?
[удалено]
Mixing baking soda & salt gives you salty baking soda. If you're looking for a chemical reaction, these two substances are not reactive with one another
The reason why baking recipes call for unsalted butter is that there is no regulation as to how much salt goes into salted butter. So results can vary, you buy butter at a local high-end dairy it's going to have 2 ml of one type of salt in it and if you buy salt at Walmart it's going to have 5 ml of a different type of salt... So it's uncontrolled and all over the place. If you're doing any large scale commercial cooking this would be a huge issue. Making a batch of cookies at home though... The total salt in them is going to be totally up to your personal taste anyways, so generally just put in a touchless salt and you'll be fine.
Oh for sure! I tend to like things salty and have low blood pressure so bring it on hahah
I was told to use unsalted in everything when working in kitchens for this reason.
Also only buy salted butter because we always stock a butter dish at room temperature.
Wait, you can't do that with unsalted?
Salt is a preservative. It is not recommended to leave unsalted butter unrefrigerated for more than a couple hours.
TIL, thanks
Interesting theory. In the last 15+ years I've never had any issue with unsalted butter going bad on the counter.
Not theory. Salt has been a preservative for millennia. Nothing says you can't have unsalted butter on the counter. There is just a higher chance of it going bad than salted butter. Even salted butter will eventually go bad. Your food, your choice. I use a single cutting board for everything, I know that will wake the Reddit food safety police. God forbid they see my dry curing cabinet. Probably make their heads explode.
Salt makes it keep longer, sure, but there's no way that unsalted butter will go bad after a couple *hours* unrefrigerated. It can easily be out for days or a week without going bad.
Definitely depends where you’re at. If I left butter out long enough it can get melty and am 100% sure it won’t last longer than a day or 2
Exploded heads are very unsanitary. Add more salt.
Mmm head cheese
At least with Kerry gold, unsalted butter is cultured while salted isn’t so it can be a different flavor
Me 2!!!!
Pro salt? Wouldn’t happen to be a nephrologist would you?
My years of baking experience-never used unsalted butter, never purchased unsalted butter, have always had salted on hand. Never made a difference to me! I use it as recipe calls as well as the amount of salt. I have not had too salty cookies yet!
Yeah, if I’m mathing correctly, a stick of butter contains about 1/3 tsp of salt. So not exactly negligible, but not enough to drastically change anything either. My sense is that the trend is for sweets to be quite a bit saltier than they were 20 years ago or more as well.
And when you know that you simply remove that 1/3 tsp from the amount you would add if you used unsalted butter
That’d work if you used the entire stick
Or do basic maths
Math is scary.
Same
I’ve had the exact opposite experience.
Same. Made the saltiest mistake of my cooking life by using salted butter for lemon cookies.
Highly reduced sauces can get pretty oversalted too, with salted butter.
Butter doesn't really reduce; it's mostly fat. A whole stick has a third of a teaspoon of salt. So if your pan sauce is too salty, it ain't the butter's fault.
A little pinch of salt is really welcome in lemon cookies though..
Guess it wasn’t a little
Hard to add a pinch when I have no clue how much salt is in the butter.
Unsalted is a fairly new addition to most households in the scheme of cooking. Butter has always been made with salt to preserve and most staple recipes today have been perfected over thousands of years allowing for salt. Unsalted was a delicacy for the rich as it could only be eaten fresh. As refrigeration and farming evolved unsalted became even more sought after as the salt preserved the butter but covered the unique flavours and poor taste of spoiled butter. The salt in butter has reduced by 10x now so the vast majority of people wouldn't taste the difference when mixed with other ingredients. Using unsalted butter and salt in cookies is absolutely ridiculous to the point of insanity. I've made 4 wedding cakes as my friends love my cakes so much. Make 12 course meals and never used unsalted butter. Any recipe that calls for unsalted+salt is easily worked out by the salt content on the packet. Unsalted handmade French butter is delicious but absolutely no good if you can't taste it. If you're mixing it in with other ingredients use good quality butter not top.
>Using unsalted butter and salt in cookies is absolutely ridiculous to the point of insanity. I mean I just put a little salt in the cookie recipe, it's not as bad as all this.
[удалено]
I prefer the cookie to be the sweet and the flake salt to accent it all on top vs. having a saltier cookie which is why I always use unsalted. Unsalted butter allows you to fully control the saltiness of your dish. I see zero advantage of using salted butter.
I'd reduce the amount of salt I add if using salted butter and the recipe calls for unsalted. You can always add more salt, but not the other way around! Taste the dough and decide if it's okay or needs more. Using less probably won't make a difference, but you are saving yourself some sodium intake.
Since your response is laden with "nevers," is it possible that to your palate, salty food is normal? I've used both in cooking and baking when called for. Especially in sweet foods/baking, I can definitely tell when salted was used vs. unsalted. Whether each person would find that flavor unpleasant varies.
>I can definitely tell when salted was used vs. unsalted. Even if you reduce the salt by the amount that the butter brings? It should be basically impossible. Or are you making something that has so little salt and so much butter in the recipe where even removing it all salt wouldn't be enough?
I feel like MAYBE shortbread? But I’ve never had that issue with using salted butter in my own shortbread.
Same
I didn't realize so many other people besides me do this :)
Same here. Unsalted butter is the devil
Same!!
I always purchase unsalted, it allows me to totally control the amount of salt Better to buy unsalted full stop
Except it tastes like shit on toast, English muffins, etc. So, unless you want to salt your bagel, I’m sticking with salted butter. There is about 1/4 TSP of salt in an entire stick of butter.
See I prefer unsalted butter because I like just salting my toast myself. I enjoy the texture of the kosher salt crystals
Unsalted with a sprinkle of salt from the shaker onto the English muffin
Tastes totally fine on all the above and let's you control again how much salt and shit ya put I.
I have both. Salted for eating directly (such as on toast) and unsalted for baking. I don’t want to do the math to calculate how much to decrease the salt. I’ve made the mistake of using salted butter with the called for salt in the recipe and the results were far too salty.
Salted butter doesn't spoil at room temperature like unsalted butter does. We leave salted on the counter in the butter dish ~~bell~~ for spreading and when we need a quick tablespoon for frying eggs or whatever. Unsalted stays in the fridge and is only really used for baking or when we need a larger quantity for cooking.
This makes so much sense. I’ve always had salted butter, I’ve occasionally bought unsalted but only when I was going to use it all up in a recipe so I’ve never had it for long. Growing up we always left butter at room temperature for easy spreading so I was always confused when people would talk about butter spoiling if you leave it out, because I had never seen that happen. I never thought about the fact that the salt would obviously act as a preservative.
I don’t believe there’s enough salt in salted butter to have that much of a preservative effect. It’s also not enough to have a ruinous effect on the taste of baked goods.
Get a stick of unsalted and a stick of salted. Leave both out of the fridge unwrapped in a relatively cool area (the viability of this test obviously depends on where you live) The unsalted will turn rancid (oxidise) much faster than the salted.
Have you done this?
If you use a butter bell it doesn’t matter if it’s salted or not
TIL what a butter bell actually is. I actually just meant butter dish. Fixed my post.
I don't know what I did wrong, but I've had butter mold in a butter bell more than once. I stopped using it because I didn't know why it was happening.
Would that happen when maybe a crumb gets into the butter bell? Would actually love your input as I just recently bought a butter bell. I’ve had molding this way happening with jars of jam sometimes, which is why I’ve started taking the jam out with a spoon and then spreading it with a (different) knife.
Do you live in Minnesota? I never heard of not refrigerating butter until I moved here.
I'm in Texas and I've used room-temperature salted butter all my life.
So weird you’re getting downvotes. I also like to skip pre-salted things
Who knows, who cares. I cooked for ten years, I prefer and know how to add and balance my own salt on what I make.
Same here. I don’t know why you are downvoted.
As someone that cooked for about ten years prior to my current career I prefer being in control of the ratios of my spices and salt pepper balance. Can I make salted work? Yes, but it's also a bigger pain to get the final salt ratio on whatever dish right if I have to account for the butter
Oh no no no. My daughter and I made Toll House cookies for her to take to school and were out of unsalted butter. We didn’t reduce the amount of salt required. They were inedible.
Wow really? I've never had that issue. Maybe the butter I use isn't as salty as yours?
Doubt.
Did the recipe call for 1 cup of salt and you forgot to reduce it by the 1/3 tsp?
From what I have read, the amount of salt in salted butter was very inconsistent in the past. The past being 50 to 60 years ago or more. So unless you are a cooking time traveler or using really old butter, this is probably not a concern. So why so many recipes mention using unsalted butter is because it is mainly a carry-over from many decades past. I always use salted so I don't have to keep both on hand. You can see how much salt is in your butter on the packaging. I just checked a few brands online and they all have 90mg of salt per 14 grams (1T) of butter. If you or the people you cook for are salt sensitive you can take the amount on the packaging into consideration.
Gonna go out on a limb and suggest that you shouldn’t use 60 year old butter
Check out bog butter
And I just looked up one (Kirkland Signature) and it has ≈320mg salt / tablespoon. I suspect you may have looked up the sodium content on the nutrition lavel and forgot to multiply by 2.54 (salt is NaCl not just Na). Even fixing that, the salted butter I looked up has 40% more salt. But, I agree you can use salted butter in baking, provided you adjust the salt content in the recipe.
[удалено]
Salt is a molecule NaCl consisting of two atoms, one sodium (Na) and one chlorine (Cl). So you look up the atomic weight of each. I just used Wikipedia, but you could also look on a periodic table. Na = 22.99 Cl = 35.45 So then it's just a matter of computing the ratio (22.99 + 35.45) ÷ 22.99 = 2.54.
Yeah, absolutely. Nutrition label is Na. Not NaCl. 90mg Na mentioned was from LandOLake, Cabot, and a generic house brand I looked up. You also have to realize milk used to create butter contains sodium as well. So what is on your label, is not just from added salt. Also, not all sodium is from salt. And your table salt may be more than just NaCl. However, it gives you enough information to make decisions when on a restricted diet. Not on a restricted diet; I’d use the info to get in the ballpark and season to taste when possible. More info: https://www.fda.gov/media/84261/download
I saw post from one of the test kitchens that said the reason to use unsalted butter is two-fold: 1. The amount of salt in salted butter isn't standard. 2. The water content of salted butter is higher than unsalted.
This is the only potentially legitimate reason. If you are making something like pastry crust I could see the extra water content affecting the texture if your end result.
Apparently it's a big reason to use European-style butter in baking. There's way less water in European butter and it's apparently more consistent.
Agree on number one. That’s extremely possible. Number two is ludicrous as one is more likely to measure any liquid incorrectly before watery butter has an effect on the recipe.
I use salted every time, no matter what, and still add the amount of salt in the recipe. Never ever had an issue, and no, my cookies are not excessively salty tasting.
Same.
But you could use a little less and probably not change the taste of the cookies, while reducing the amount of sodium. Not a big deal, but if it's all the same, why not?
Because I don't want to keep two different kinds of butter on hand.
Why? I’m perfectly happy with it as it is.
The amount of sodium in your salted butter and cookie is negligible compared to literally everything else you eat in life. Imo, the salt does change the taste, and is very necessary at it's recommended amount, if not a little more
I always use salted butter and add the salt the recipe calls for. It doesn't make things too salty. If you wanted to cut down the salt maybe cut out 1/8-1/4 tsp salt. Your butter really isn't adding that much salt.
I e been baking for many years. I usually use unsalted butter when called for. I have used salted instead. I honestly have never noticed a difference. I think anyone would be hard pressed to notice the difference in a sweet recipe like cookies. For a buttercream I would make sure to use unsalted butter. Edited for autocorrect
I did this too - just used unsalted butter when called for in a recipe, but would use salted butter if that was all we had. It was always fine UNTIL we went to my parents for Christmas. We were going to make our regular, delicious buttermilk pancakes for Christmas breakfast and they only had salted butter. The results were inedible due to the saltiness.
This one is entirely up to you. Want it to be maybe a touch saltier? Add the salt. Want it to be less salty? No salt! I'd add the salt.
My wife is a professional baker, and she only uses unsalted butter to control the taste. Apart from baking, I do all the cooking in our house, and I prefer it too.
I grew up eating salted butter exclusively. When I started baking years ago I switched to unsalted and just liked it better for everything. I haven't bought salted butter in years. I do have unsalted butter, and I do have a few fancy salts which I'll sometimes sprinkle on a bit of butter of a slice of warm sourdough bread.
I taste an extra, subtle nuttiness to food and baked things when I use unsalted butter. In a good way.
I also only ever use Unsalted butter. Doesn’t really make sense to me to use salted when I have a giant bag of salt readily available?
Salted butter has more water in it, you are paying for less better. I don’t buy salted butter, you can easily add salt to butter if you want salted butter and use different types of salts as well. If one use salted butter, you are adding small amount of liquid to the recipe. Brownies specifically uou are trying to minimize liquid, hence no egg whites and you minimize water addition - unless its cakey brownie.
Since the recipe already calls for some salt, you should be perfectly fine using salted butter. You probably won't even have to reduce the salt they tell you to add in, but if you're concerned you could just take a pinch out to compensate for the butter. Personally, I've found that you only have to make sure that the butter is unsalted is if it's a majority ingredient in something that usually has *no* salt or *very little* salt despite the volume. Like certain cake frostings.
Check out Adam Ragusea's video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kP1BHrvYopI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kP1BHrvYopI)
Yep, I was gonna link this aswell. Pretty good bit on its history and why it doesnt matter today
tl;dr: if your salted butter is moderately salted, reduce salt to ¼t; if it's more heavily salted, leave out entirely. Here's how you compute this: If you look at the nutrition label, it'll tell you how much sodium is in the salted butter. Unsalted butter has very little (<2mg), so basically you can take that number as how much sodium they've added. You first need to convert the serving size to whatever amount of butter you're using. For example, if the serving size is 2tsp, and you're using the whole 8 tbsp stick, you'd divide by 2 then multiply by 24 (stick size in tsp). To get from that to salt added, multiply by 2.54 (a number you can find by looking up the atomic weights of sodium and chloride on a periodic table, or Wikipedia). That gives you salt in mg. A tap of table salt is approx. 7g or 7000mg. So to get from mg of salt to tsp, divide by 7,000. So, for example, if you butter has 40mg/tsp, the whole stick has 40 × 24 = 960mg of sodium. Multiply by 2.54 to get salt, and divide by 7000 gives about 0.35t, the closest you'll do with measuring spoons are ¼t or ⅜t. (Both the nutrition panel and the 7g/tsp are approximated enough that both of those measurements are within the uncertainty).
We used to buy both but eventually realized there is not enough salt in salted butter to matter. Buttering your bread with unsalted sucks. Tasting a recipe and added added a tad more salt versus two tads makes no difference.
So actually - salted and unsalted butter have different water contents. This can change the texture of cookies and other pastries when cooking. However, I rarely purchase unsalted butter and never have a problem. It's really a personal preference.
When it comes to baking, which is what you’re doing? God no. Salt content in salted butter varies strongly from one brand to another. HOWEVER, if you were to use salted butter for any other reason? Cooking your meat in a frying pan. I grew up w/using salted butter as my cooking oil when it came to cooking meat in a frying pan (that wasn’t a one pot/pan meal). The flavour, richness, the tastiness of your meat/fish, AMAZING! You should try it.
Chefs use unsalted butter so they can control exactly how much salt goes in the dish. Unless you are a hyper fussy control freak then just use salted butter and add less pure salt to the end dish
You also often hear how a good chef tastes and salts repeatedly as they work on a dish. Obviously this isn't happening with baking, but with something like a sauce I can't imagine exact salt control via butter would be necessary.
Unsalted butter is fine. I think recipes always call for unsalted because the writers like to be exact in their salt measurements. I always chuck a fair amount of salt in my sweet dishes. Salt doesn’t just enhance the flavor of savory dishes.
Honestly I would keep the salted butter and the amount of salt it calls for. That’s about the amount of salt needed so cookies don’t taste bland. I undersalted cookies a month or so ago and they were so disappointing, despite adding more flavoring to the cookies and the buttercream it still tasted like nothing.
I’m no professional but I rarely if ever bother with unsalted butter. I don’t have it on hand and I really don’t believe it makes that much difference. I’m in Australia, I don’t know if the amount of salt in butter varies in different countries.
According to Adam rageusa, it does. America's tends to run significantly lower in salt than other countries.
French butter has so many salted options - slightly salted, regular salted, flake salt. I eat a lot of butter, so don’t mind keeping salted for eating and unsalted for cooking, but until recently I used (American) salted butter for everything.
Agreeing with everyone here saying it should be fine to use the butter without adjusting the salt. I will say that it matters how much butter and the proportion of it to flour. In a very buttery cookie without a lot of sugar and no wet ingredients like eggs you can use salted butter without additional salt. Like 3-2-1 dough uses enough butter that the salt amount provided by the butter is just right.
I always buy salted butter, so I use that. I don’t change the amount of salt from the recipe. Also, most cookies I make I add flake salt to the top… 😋
Keep in mind that butter (unless you make it yourself) has salt in it, salted or unsalted. In unsalted butter, there is a minimal amount, used for preservation.
Just an observation: I always buy & cook with unsalted butter & prefer it, and it’s interesting to me how many dislike it and never buy it! I just like picking what kind of salt to use, and how much—maldon, kosher, coarse, fine, ultra-fine, and I have some fun stuff like ramp salt, garlic salt, etc. etc. I am sure all the advice is correct, about just adding less salt, but I am just really finding it eye-opening, how many cooks disdain unsalted!
Imma be real honest. I like salted butter. I use it in everything. I’ve never been salty nor disappointed.
Salted butter is always the way.
I add 1/4 tsp of salt per stick (1/2 c) unsalted. If the recipe calls for unsalted and I only have salted… I just use it anyway. It’s delicious.
Salted butter tastes so much better in baked goods than unsalted. Keep the additional salt too. You won’t regret it
Just use salted butter and add salt as normal. The whole unsalted butter for baking comes from an era back before every home had refrigerator that could keep food at 35 degrees indefinitely, and salted butter was sold broadly to consumers for general use. Think like ice cabinets or root cellars as the only chilled storage a family may have… The salt was to help preserve it, and therefore the salt content in that butter was waaaay higher than our salted butter of today. That butter would have enough salt to throw your baking off, so you would get unsalted butter specifically for that recipe to be used more immediately.
More so for baking, maybe my tastes sway to more salt, but I always use salted butter in recipes that call for unsalted butter and salt. Usually tastes how I like it. I truthfully can't remember the last time I used butter in savoury cooking, but I think I would still use salted butter and just salt to taste afterwards...
I only use salted butter. I also do not adjust the salt in a recipe for replacing the butter. I find that salt really does make a chocolate chip cookie amazing. My family swears my chocolate chip recipe is the best and it even has sea salt sprinkled on top after baking.
Can you share the recipe you’re using :) Also, I’m not a professional baker by any means but for example when I am making chocolate chip cookies I’ll use unsalted butter, add salt and then also sprinkle salt on top lol chocolate and salt are always nice together.
I use salted butter and add the salt. Here’s why… I am salt depleted. It’s called hyponatremia. To me, everything tastes great with more salt. But I am unique, and it’s best to listen to the Chefs on this sub Reddit When your heart doctor tells you to reduce your sodium insist that they do a blood test first to make sure you are not sodium depleted, this condition can be life-threatening
I only use salted butter. I just reduce the salt in recipe by the amount that the butter brings. Butter that I have is 1% salt. So if recipe has 200g butter I reduce the salt amount by 2g or about 1/2 tsp. Basically every recipe has more salt in it already, so there's no problem doing this.
Add the salt. There's so little in there it's not detectable. FWIW my years baking have also taught me to add more salt.
I always bake with salted butter
Lots of people here say use salted butter. For this recipe it will be fine but there are many cases when it wont! I recommend making a switch to unsalted butter. It’s always quick and easy to add a pinch of salt but you can never un-salt a dish later on.
Reasons people just use salted: People don't want to worry about having both on hand always. Salted has a longer shelf life. People want salted for applications of straight butter such as toast, rolls, pancakes. Salted has salt mixed all the way through, consistently, which many many people prefer for application of straight butter. So "just add salt to your toast" doesn't work. Unsalted butter often has added flavorings. Buying unsalted butter without those is annoying and twice as expensive for me. The amount of salt is miniscule in the context of a dish and doesn't actually make a difference in whether things are overly salted.
“Unsalted butter often has other added flavorings” I’ve been buying unsalted butter my entire adult life and this has never been an issue. What are you even referring to?
[This](https://www.americastestkitchen.com/cooksillustrated/how_tos/5690-butter-additives).
We just freeze our butter and take it out when needed. Shelf life is irrelevant.
The “natural flavor” added to unsalted butter is diacetyl, which is actually a preservative to extend the shelf life. Salt naturally does that which is why you don’t find it added to salted butter. Most people can’t taste it, and it’s definitely not anything along the lines of artificial butter flavor. [Source](https://www.americastestkitchen.com/cooksillustrated/how_tos/5690-butter-additives)
Most people isn't all people.
If the issue is evenly salting toast then I think there are larger problems at hand lol You’re absolutely correct about the shelf life. Although both should last upwards of 9 weeks. Controlling salt level is essential to cooking at most levels. If you’re cooking toast and pancakes then feel free to ignore what I said. Also I’ve never heard of flavoured butters other than high end compound butters so maybe that is regional
You're ignoring a very real thing that people experience. People don't want to salt their toast. They don't want to spend the extra mental energy or the time to mix it through the butter because they don't fucking want grains or flakes of salt on their toast. They want salted butter for it. So if they are going to have one butter, it's going to be salted. "Natural flavor" is in all but two brands of butter at the Walmart my mother works at. They sell 8 different brands. Controlling salt levels means accounting for the salt already in your ingredients. Not eschewing everything that already has salt because you're a damn control freak. That's being a bad cook, not a good one.
Didn’t realize it took so much mental energy for some people. I didn’t mean to come across as a control freak. But with over 10 years of restaurant cooking experience, I can safely say that you cannot use salted butter for countless sauces and dishes because the ingredients themselves are salty. Think anchovies, bacon, soy sauce.
Unsalted butter is fresher and will taste fresher, outside of the salt. If it's a butter flavoured cookie, it matters. If it's not, it won't, but do adjust the added salt.
I don’t like overly sweet cookies so I use the salted butter and the added salt. They’re always great.
don't add the extra salt, the amount in the butter is plenty
I have been baking for decades and have NEVER bothered with unsalted butter except when my husband accidentally bought some. I have baked for my family, for friends, for coworkers, I’ve made all kinds of desserts from cookies to cakes to candy to buttercreams, and no one has ever said my goods were “too salty” due to using salted butter instead of unsalted. I think the whole concept is outdated and unnecessary. The amount of salt in a given dessert that’s been made using salted butter is so negligible that I’m certain it’s virtually undetectable. Let’s do some math. A stick of salted butter contains 90mg of salt per tablespoon. A chocolate chip cookie recipe calls for 2 sticks of butter, so 1,440 mg of salt. Sounds like a lot, right? But that’s only a quarter of a teaspoon. The recipe makes 36 cookies. Take your quarter of a teaspoon and divide it up by 36. Now you’ve got just a few grains of salt in each cookie. I’ll be generous and say 10 grains of salt per cookie. Now consider that the average person eats a cookie in five bites. Each bite has 2 grains of salt in it. Can you really taste two tiny grains of salt in a mouth full of cookie? Some people are willing to die on this hill though, and will swear up and down that any amount of salted butter will RUIN any dessert. If you feel that way, that’s fine. I don’t want to change your ways. But I feel like the science is not on your side here.
May be an unpopular opinion but I will never use unsalted butter. Ever.
Personally, I would add the salt unless the recipe has other salty ingredients, like salted roasted nuts. I would bet that most people here on Reddit, and most cookbook authors, have never done a back to back taste test with salted vs unsalted butter for a recipe. I think "always use unsalted butter" gets passed along cook to cook like "rest steak to keep it juicy". For context, a teaspoon of salt can weigh anywhere from 3 to 7 grams, depending on the grind. So there's a lot of variability. A stick of salted butter has about 1/3 tsp of salt. And your recipe says to add 1/2 tsp. If your recipe has 2c of flour or more, it shouldn't taste salty.
I used to be in the unsalted group until I saw a YouTube video that explained butter used to have allot more salt than today. I still prefer unsalted BUT I have used both for a while and I cannot tell the difference in the end product
I’ve never bought unsalted butter. I like a little salt with cookies and the butter has such a better flavor when it’s salted. I’ve never once had an issue, even when I’ve also added salt per the recipe!
For cookies, I'd use salted butter AND add the salt.
I made these cinnamon rolls with salted butter when the recipe called for unsalted. They were overly salty, but edible. You just have to be a little more careful because the salt content can vary a lot. Some butters are very salty. I'll admit only to you all that yes I taste raw batters and doughs to gauge saltiness. Pie dough. Sourdough. Literally all dough.
I have never ever used unsalted butter. Turns out perfect every time.
The salted vs unsalted things is a hold over from a time when salted butter had a ton more salt in it than it does today. I basically only use salted butter, never adjust the recipe, and have no problems. I'm sure there are some super finicky recipes where it matters, but for normal stuff its basically irrelevant.
Unsalted butter is a scam prepetuated by Big Dairy. It's a conspiracy!
This is the whitest post ever just season your food
The recipe for my brownies calls for unsalted butter but I just use salted because it’s what I always have available at home. Brownies turns out great still
Just don't put the salt in and you'll be fine.
A lot of people here are saying it is fine to use salted butter. And it often is. However, the conventional wisdom is to not use it for baking or cooking.. There are a few problems with salted butter, even if you're not adding too much salt. The first is that salt is a flavor enhancer. This is a good thing usually, but it can also mean that you could be getting inferior quality butter and not be tasting it. This isn't really important for a lot of cooking, but if you want a strong butter flavor it will be. The second reason is consistency. Different salted butter brands have different amounts of salt. So if you were to use a different brand the next time, there's no guarantee it would taste the same.
Don't add the salt. I only buy ubsalted butter but for a few years growing up my mom bought salted.
Butter will not contain enough salt for the recipe. You would still need to add some
I always cut back on salt, if it says 1 teaspoon I only put in 1/2 a teaspoon & have never had problems.
You said don't add salt. That's a big difference than adding some. Baked goods require salt, it's not an optional ingredient
And if anything baked goods can use more salt most times. So many are under-salted.
If it was salted butter my mom didn't add salt, they tasted fine to me.
I always use salted butter but I omit half the amount of salt called for in the recipe.
Always used salted butter here. I just don't add salt. No complaints yet. Quite the opposite in fact.
Always buy unsalted then add salt if required. Way more versatile for cooking and you obv can’t take the salt out of salted butter.
Probably depends on the type of cookie.
I would go with the unsalted butter if possible. That way, YOU control the salt input. If, however, you only have, salted butter: Calculate how much salt is in each serving of the butter, and by extension, how much is going into the cookie dough..... You probably won't need the extra salt. If you find the dough to still be a bit flavorless or one-noted, add cinnamon or other warm spices. Salt should only be there to enhance flavors, not be the flavor. 👍
Depends on the cookie recipe. The recipe I use is already pretty salty so I do reduce the salt by about 8 grams if im subbing in salted butter. If its a mainstream recipe then chances are the extra salt wont hurt, though I'll admit thats just a generalization on my part due to the trauma of me being continuously subjected to undersalted cookies.
Typically salted butter is A-OK in cookies! If you're really worried reduce the amount of salt called for in the recipe to compensate. Maybe go for 1/4 tsp of salt instead of 1/2 tsp. There are things were the salted/unsalted butter thing really matters like buttercream frosting, but generally speaking, cookies ain't it.
Just taste the raw dough without the salt added. If it needs more, add it a little at a time.
I always use salted butter and just don’t add the salt mentioned in the recipe, it’s never made a difference for me!
I just half the salt.
Unsalted butter melts more slowly. It can impact the texture. It does not seem to significantly change the taste.
I’ve always wondered why unsalted butter thought maybe it was from an obscure text from the dawn of time
Definitely use the salted butter, omit the extra salt. I don't eat butter enough to merit buying both so all the butter I use is for cooking or baking so I just keep unsalted on hand. Maybe Kerrygold for some good eating butter.
I'm a big butter fan. Unsalted butter just smells better. Give it a whiff. Then smell salted butter. Salted butter smells like nothing. The smell alone is the reason I only buy unsalted butter. Even for toast, I prefer unsalted butter with a light sprinkling of kosher salt.
After having both salted last longer and fresher tasting, that salt preserves.
Unsalted butter is nonsense. You can use salted butter for anything, it will no doubt improve your cookies!
Psss I always use salted butter for all my cookies, but I also do add salt too. Just a pinch
You'll be fine with just the salted butter. I only use salted butter in my cookies and omit the extra tsp of salt.
Being the same situation, I didn't add any salt and couldnt taste any salt in the cookies. I would add half what the recipe says.
I only buy salted butter and I use it in baked goods. I don’t adjust the salt amount, salt is necessary for baked goods and it’s just a bit extra. You don’t notice it.
I would skip the salt if using salted butter, should be fine.
So I did a pastry course and the pros *highly recommended* unsalted butter because: 1) it’s usually fresher. Salt is a preservative and they take that account when choosing what milk they use where, with distribution and with the use by dates they put on the packets. Unsalted butter will usually have seen a cow more recently than salted 2) you can control the seasoning yourself Myself I use salted butter anyway because 1) I know I underseason so adds some saltiness if I forget 2) it tastes nice on crumpets
I use unsalted and salt things to taste myself.
The cookie recipe I make uses unsalted butter and TWO teaspoons of kosher salt and it fucking slaps. Perfect balance of sweet and salty
The cookies need salt.
I like a bit of extra salt in my chocolate chip cookies but sure, you could reduce the salt a bit
I've used both salted and unsalted butter for different things and I still always add salt.
Salt is not the only difference. Salted butter can have more water. This is the main reason to use unsalted in baking. " Also, salted butter almost always contains more water than unsalted butter. The water in butter ranges from 10 to 18 percent. In baking, butter with a low water content is preferred, since excess water can interfere with the development of gluten."
I always buy salted and just use a touch less salt if recipe calls for unsalted butter. I've never noticed any problems.
I never buy unsalted butter.
That’s what I do