Bless Norma Rae Pilkinton for putting big smiles on a whole lot of faces (all of us who originally hailed from the sticks or now choose to make our homes in rural stick locations) for recently writing, “I came from the sticks, so I thought it was just me that was stupid, but I asked several friends who cook a lot and they don’t know, either…
Then she popped the $64,000 question, going straight at a subject that has had a huge number of us also wondering exactly the same thing: “Why do some recipes call for unsalted butter or unsalted margarine? And what happens if they call for unsalted and you use salted?”
Longtime friend Louise Carbajal of Marysville is first to step up to the plate today, and says, “I’m from the sticks, but there’s no way I’m going to call myself stupid, so guess what?
“I’ve tried salted and unsalted butter in baking and — guess what? There is no difference! The taste is the same, everything is the same, except the sodium content.”
Another faithful Forum helper, Michael Koznek of Snohomish, takes a different view. “Unsalted butter is used in delicate baked goods,” he says, “because the amount of salt in a pound of salted butter can vary by a teaspoon or more, depending upon which brand of butter is used or the quality of the cream.
“Salt is a very cheap flavoring and can mask a multitude of mistakes and off flavors.”
Dan Lingafelter of Everett is next up, telling us, “By baking and cooking with unsalted butter or margarine, you can control the amount of salt in a recipe as it can change the taste and way the recipe turns out.”
Last but not least today, Vicki McBride of Everett advises, “The March-April 2011 issue of Cook’s Illustrated ran an article entitled ‘Butter 101’ that answers the question about salted or unsalted butter, which I had always wondered about myself.
“It may be 101 to Cook’s Illustrated, but it sure solved the mystery for me. There are some other butter tips, too, that I found really helpful!”
So thanks to Vicki, here we go, with a starter bit of this Cook’s Illustrated Butter 101 spread: “Salted or Unsalted: In the test kitchen, we use unsalted butter almost exclusively and add our own salt to recipes. Why? First, the amount of salt in salted butter varies from brand to brand — on average 1/3 teaspoon a stick — which makes offering a universal conversion impossible.
“Second, salted butter almost always contains more water, which can interfere with gluten development — particularly important in baking. (Biscuits made with salted butter were noticeably mushy.)
“Third, salt masks butter’s naturally sweet, delicate flavors; in butter-specific recipes like beurre blanc and buttercream frosting, we found that extra salt to be overwhelming.”
Now let’s read Butter 101 “Plain or Premium: While you hear a lot about the higher fat content in premium butters, they actually contain only about a gram more per tablespoon than regular butter, and even our tasters had trouble telling the difference. The real distinction is culturing — the process of fermenting the cream before churning it that builds tangy, complex flavors. That said, these nuances are subtle in most cooked applications, so we save the expensive cultured stuff for spreading on toast.”
Before we call a halt to today’s learning experience, let’s take a look at “Whipped Butter: A Stand-in for Stick? Whipped butter, made by beating air into butter, makes a creamy spread but isn’t always a good alternative to stick butter for cooking. While testers couldn’t tell the difference in baked goods, they found the aerated butter ‘foamy’ and ‘plastic-like’ in uncooked applications such as frosting.
“If you want to use whipped butter, base your substitution on weight, not volume. (Adding air increases the volume, not the weight.) A standard tub of whipped butter weighs 8 ounces, equal to two sticks of butter.”
The next Forum will appear in Wednesday’s Good Life section.
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