Why unsalted butter?

[GordonCooks]

I prefer unsalted butter because it has less salt than salted butter

Edited November 2, 2004 by GordonCooks (log)

[Ore]

I think about the maney standpoint - I am paying for butter - not salt in my butter - salt costs pennies - I can add that in my self!

Although - I had a damn fine salted butter at the Salone del Gusto in Torino last week - it was from Denmark I believe!

Ciao,

Ore

[jess mebane]

Seems like Martha used to preach on how butter vats/lots, etc. had salt added rather indiscriminately, leaving no way to know how much there was per pound. After years of unsalted living, the salted seems a little briny on toast.

[Bux]

The best butter I've ever had has been some artisanal butter made on a small farm in Brittany. It was salt butter and the salt was sel du Guerande. I always buy sweet butter when I buy commerical butter. It's likely to be fresher and likely to have a lower water content.

[irodguy]

I think about the maney standpoint - I am paying for butter  - not salt in my butter - salt costs pennies - I can add that in my self!

Although - I had a damn fine salted butter at the Salone del Gusto in Torino last week - it was from Denmark I believe!

Ciao,

Ore

←

So you went to Terra Madre?

[irodguy]

Personally I stock unsalted butter. It's just more versatile. I can use it for baking, sauces etc. I normally use a mix of butter and EVOO on bread and then add some decent large crystal salt.

[Redsugar]

A vaild argument can be put forth to the effect that salt has the ability, in some instances, of disguising rancid butter. Lower grades can be made from soured cream and can present an acid or stale taste and a spongy texture. A chef’s experienced palate can easily discern butter with an off-flavor. Indeed, the flavor of many commercial butters can vary widely from one batch to another because butter easily adopts the aroma of other foods to which it has been exposed.

Whipped butter spreads with facility because it has been aerated; but it shrinks down when cooked. And you pay unnecessarily for the air bulk of it.

Many cooks prefer to use only unsalted butter for their baking. Yet, when making yeast doughs, the salt in butter tends to counteract the weakening effect of the fat on the gluten; thus, there really may be no persausive reason not to use the salted type.

The most persausive reasons why serious cooks choose unsalted over salted butter – apart from the control of salinity in the dish for which it’s used – has to do with the (supposed or not) freshness of the preservative-free product and its relative moisture content. It can be frozen successfully up to six months; although some ardent perfectionists hold their artisinal butters at approx. 66° for several days. French pastry cooks often prefer to use “dry butter” (which has very little moisture) for making puff pastry. European-style butter (one of the four types I use) generally has a lower moisture content than the usual, run-of-the-mill commercial type and it’s quite ideal for making icings & sauces.

You may benefit fom consulting the Gourmet News Specialty Butter Buying Guide.

[ruthcooks]

I've never understood the "unsalted tastes fresh than salted" argument. What??? Does old Joe yell at the fork lift guy, "Better put those pallets of salted butter back in the corner, we can't sell it until it's gone off."

A better criteria of freshness is what sells better where you shop. The first and only time I tried Plugra it tasted like butter that had been kept at 90 degrees for about two weeks. If you shop somewhere like Wegmans, it might be safe to buy, but I'm stuck with Safeway and Giant so I stick with Land O Lakes for both salted and unsalted. Except for desserts, I use salted on the table and for cooking. What about better controlling the salt? You're going to taste it for seasoning at the end anyway, aren't you?

In my first restaurant, I whipped salted and unsalted butter together and added a bit more salt to serve in crocks with the French bread. The less salt I added, the more butter people ate. I suppose you could argue that they liked it better, but I don't agree--I think they ate more because they were trying to get enough of the salty taste they're used to.

[boulak]

Redsugar: I can't quite grasp your comment about using salted butter in yeasted doughs. I prefer to control the amount of salt in a yeasted dough just as I would in a non-yeasted product. Salt content is generally 1.8% to 2% (with some exceptions of course) of the flour weight. If there is no salt in the butter, then I know exactly how much to include in order to control fermentation as well as influence the other factors that hinge on the correct percentage of salt. Am I missing the point? Could you explain it in a little more depth? Thanks

Edited November 3, 2004 by boulak (log)

[scott123]

I've never understood the "unsalted tastes fresh than salted" argument.  What???  Does old Joe yell at the fork lift guy, "Better put those pallets of salted butter back in the corner, we can't sell it until it's gone off."

A better criteria of freshness is what sells better where you shop.  The first and only time I tried Plugra it tasted like butter that had been kept at 90 degrees for about two weeks.  If you shop somewhere like Wegmans, it might be safe to buy, but I'm stuck with Safeway and Giant so I stick with Land O Lakes for both salted and unsalted.

←

Here here!!!

It's all about turnover. Fresh butter is always better. I don't know where the rest of you guys shop, but the places I go have some pretty dusty looking unsalted butter, even Trader Joes.

If I lived on a farm, sure, unsalted butter 24/7. But here in the burbs, you buy the butter with the best turnaround, or pay the culinary consequences.

Not to mention that most of the commercial unsalted butter you buy isn't even pure butter. It's cream plus culture (sometimes called 'flavor'). The butter industry may call it a natural way of preserving butter. I call it an abomination.

The likelihood of walking in to a supermarket, any supermarket, and walking out with real fresh pure butter is about a million to one. The mystique of unsalted butter harks back to an earlier agrarian age when butter and milk were fresh, pure and local. The times they have a changed. It's time to wake up and smell the lipid.

Edited November 3, 2004 by scott123 (log)

[scott123]

And what is this 'lack of salt control' issue?

One Tablespoon of salted butter has about 1/30 of a teaspoon of salt. If I'm worried about that extra 1/30th of a teaspoon, I'll subtract it from the recipe. I don't have any recipe, be it savory or sweet, that doesn't have at least a 30th of a teaspoon of salt for each tablespoon of butter being used.

Other than a little math, I don't see a great deal of effort or loss of control in this scenario. Do you know how many times I've ended up with too much salt in my food due to the additional salt from butter? Never.

[aidensnd2]

For any of you who think that the amount of salt in salted butter doesn't have an impact then try making 2 batches of buttercream, 1 with salted butter and 1 with unsalted. Then try to tell me that the salt content doesn't matter...

[lovebenton0]

When cooking for a stringent sodium-restricted diet the unsalted butter can make a difference. So for some of us it is more than just the impact on a recipe.

There never seems to be any dusty unsalted butter at my grocery store.

[Malawry]

I buy unsalted--usually from Costco, and I freeze it and just keep a couple sticks in the fridge. When I ate bread with butter a lot I would buy something like salted Lurpak--I like the salt in that context. I used to buy Plugra at Trader Joe's but eventually came to the point in my budget where I couldn't justify it over the cost of Costco butter--even if it does really taste better. I miss having that Plugra around sometimes, let me tell you.

At work, I use Sysco's own label of unsalted butter. It takes me a couple of months to go through a case. I don't normally bother freezing it, but I did back when I had some fridge problems. It works just fine in recipes and makes a great garlic butter when buzzed in the Cuisinart with garlic cloves and Kosher salt.

[lovebenton0]

I freeze it also, since I don't use that much butter I feel safer that I'm not wasting my money on it when I do buy it.

[Redsugar]

I can't quite grasp your comment about using salted butter in yeasted doughs....Could you explain it in a little more depth?

Boulak: The primary intent of my remark re salted butter in breads, is that there is no overwhelming reason not to use the salted type, particularly as the fresh butter is, for many budgets, fairly more expensive. As you have reiterated, it is important to remember to adjust the salt called for in a recipe should one be using salted butter for another unsalted fat, or vice versa. For many bread recipes, bakers may be amenable to using less costly fats; concomitantly, they may be satisfied that vegetable oil, for example, works just as well as butter. However, I think it is inarguable that there are some very special rich and festive breads (such as brioche, Danish, Stollen, and certain Holiday loaves) where only high-quality butter will make the standard.

Fat coats gluten molecules, so they can't amalgamate as easily, contributing to the baked bread's tenderness. Fat added to bread dough has the effect of making the gluten in the flour more supple, while simultaneously hindering its development. This means that the richer dough must be kneaded for a longer time and the finished product will be very smooth & soft. If an excessive amount of fat is to be used (as in a brioche), the dough will be so limp & sticky at the outset that the ordinary method of kneading cannot be used to develop the gluten sufficiently.

The action of the yeast is also inhibited by the fat: A small amount of fat in a bread recipe will produce a slower rising dough and the texture of the baked bread will be finer & closer. Moreover, salt acts as a control for the yeast action in breads – specifically, it helps to control the rate of fermentation. During periods of hot, humid weather, additional salt can retard a faster-than-usual rising phase.

[andiesenji]

I went to high school in Wisconsin in the early 50s and our home economics teacher was one of the rare teachers that had more degrees than most in that time and was also our chemistry teacher. She had worked in the dairy industry prior to becoming a teacher and was always lecturing about the subject, very important in "The Dairy State" as a lot of the kids in my small town class were children of dairy farmers. The lecture on butter went something like the following.

At one time all butter was unsalted and was used immediately. After culturing, resting then churning and draining away the whey, the mass of butter 'curds' was kneaded and pressed to extract as much of the whey as possible and the butter was stored in crocks, in spring houses or the crocks were set down into water in cisterns to keep it as cool as possible but it still would spoil after several days. It did not travel well.

Then, it is opined, when westward expansion began in America, and people needed a way to preserve butter on a long, slow trip, some enterprising farmwife added some salt to her batch of butter because salt is a preservative. As she kneaded the butter she probably noticed that more liquid than usual was expressed as this is another of salts effects, it will draw liquid out of a mass, be it a vegetable, or in this case, butter.

The result was a more compact and firmer product that would keep better and longer than the unsalted. Butter crocks were made in a particular way, with a ridge around the crock about a third of the way from the top so they could be set into a round wooden board which would in turn float on the water in a barrel carried on a wagon. The lid was made with circular ridges on both top and bottom so it would fit into the crock without sliding and water could be ladeled into the depression on the top. The evaporation of this water would keep the butter cool.

This treatment of butter caught on and dairys began producing it commercially as it allowed them to ship their product instead of just selling locally. This was still pretty much an American phenomenen. Europeans still used fresh butter, made daily or almost daily, purchased locally.

Americans who travelled in Europe found the butter there tasted different. Mark Twain commented on it in one of his "letters", to him it tasted "flat."

That was the standard lecture about butter.

Following is from my personal observations over the past 50 years.

There was a time when it was difficult to find unsalted butter in a supermarket. Often it was in one of the little tubs and priced much higher than the comparable salted product. However it had alwlays been available for commercial use in bakeries, restaurants and food processing.

Then in the 1960s the gourmet home cooking movement began working its way into the general American scene (instead of just in the "sophisticated metropolitan venues) and home cooks all over the country began demanding the ingredients specified in the cookbooks that were being written for the "discerning" home cook and those wishing to duplicate dishes from France and etc.

The marketing people of the dairy industry saw the light and almost overnight one began seeing unsalted butter on dairy shelves next to the salted. At first people were confused because only the lettering was different but then they began packaging it in different colors. I know because I was fooled a few times myself and picked up the wrong product. (Challenge butter was the culprit). At first it was only the "name" brands that offered both kinds of butter but now even the store labels or generics come in both types.

To me it is personal preference. I like the taste of salted butter because I have been used to it all my life.

I use unsalted butter in some dishes because I think it works better. I use european style butter because it has a lower moisture content and works much better in sauces, however I often make my own butter, it is not difficult and you can control what goes into it. My homemade butter is much lighter in color because there is no coloring added to it but it is very rich because I use an extra heavy cream and make it with a culture instead of just souring the cream.

If you are going to sauté vegetables, use unsalted butter - salted butter, just as plain salt, will pull moisture out of vegetables and will change there cellular structure.

You can test this yourself with somethng as simple as a piece of carrot.

Sauté it in unsalted butter and it will be tender and still have perfect structure.

Sauté it in salted butter and you will find the result will be slightly spongy and more fibrous and there will be more liquid in the pan and that liquid came out of the carrot.

I once made the mistake of braising celery using salted butter. It was awful, the cells between the ribs were mush and the ribs were stringy, not at all as it should be.

[Darcie B]

I use unsalted butter because I don't use enough to keep both kinds around, plus some salted butters I have tried seem to salty to me. The cost is the same here for either.

I have a couple of questions about the low moisture, European style butters. They are difficult to find here, and if I do find them, I wonder about their freshness. Is there a way to transform regular unsalted butter into a lower moisture version? Kneading in a mixer? Clarifying?

Also, when making butter, do you use a food processor, mixer, or do it by hand? How do you know when enough water/whey has come out? I made my own butter several years ago when I had a bread machine (one of the recipes in the owner's manual was for using the paddle to make butter). I long ago gave the machine away, so wonder what is the best method. Will ultra-pasteurized cream work? That's about all I can get here unless I beg a restaurant to order some for me. Could I use frozen and thawed cream to make butter? (If I order some non-pasteurized from a restaurant I'll end up with several quarts, I'm sure).

MMMmmmmm....cream....I grew up in rural North Dakota (ummm, is there any other kind of North Dakota??), and there was a creamery in town. We would take our Tupperware pitcher down there and they would ladle into it the most gorgeous ivory cream you have ever laid your eyes on. I wanted to drink it straight from the pitcher.

[andiesenji]

I don't know where you are located. There should be some supplier in your area where you can buy cream that is not over processed. Manufacturers cream is available at many places that supply both the public and restaurants/food services. Smart & Final carries it and they are open to the public as are many other outlets. types of cream

Ultrapasturized cream will not work. You can whip it as is until it solidifies but it won't have the same texture or flavor as cultured butter.

I have an electric churn (actually I have 3, including a huge 5 gallon one that I no longer use) and a hand cranked one but a mixer will work.

Since I live in southern California I have the Mexican markets at which to shop and I buy the Crema Mexicana, Grade A Table Cream in the quart size, which is not ultra-pasturized and makes wonderful cream cheese as well as butter. (They also make a sour cream labeled Crema Mexicana Agria)

This is one company.

types of cream

[Darcie B]

I don't know where you are located.  There should be some supplier in your area where you can buy cream that is not over processed.

I'll check, but I live in West (by God) Virginia, and it is difficult to find some things here. It's not difficult for me to get regular cream through a restaurant (hub & I are friends with the owner) but I hate to make any extra work for them. They have it hard enough.

[scott123]

For any of you who think that the amount of salt in salted butter doesn't have an impact then try making 2 batches of buttercream, 1 with salted butter and 1 with unsalted. Then try to tell me that the salt content doesn't matter...

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I add salt to my buttercream :) A tiny amount of salt enhances sweetness in confections.

[helenjp]

cultured butter instructions

Very fine response there, andiesenji!

I'm curious to see that you place salting of butter as a marketing practice. My (New Zealand) family was mainly Scottish (or rather, the Scots ancestors had beaten out the Welsh and the Irish in terms of kitchen culture, anyway), and I was brought up to recite three times a day "Salt is the god of the Scottish kitchen". Apart from salting our porridge, we were made to understand that shortbread needs to be made with salted butter. I wonder when salting butter became common in Scotland.

I like cultured butter best of all, but find it hard to buy, even in NZ.

[edsel]

The first and only time I tried Plugra it tasted like butter that had been kept at 90 degrees for about two weeks.

←

Not to mention that most of the commercial unsalted butter you buy isn't even pure butter.  It's cream plus culture (sometimes called 'flavor'). The butter industry may call it a natural way of preserving butter.  I call it an abomination.

←

My homemade butter is much lighter in color because there is no coloring added to it but it is very rich because I use an extra heavy cream and make it with a culture instead of just souring the cream. 

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I know this discussion is about salted vs. unsalted butter, but the issue of cultured vs. "sweet cream" butter seems to have entered into some opinions here. Ruth, have you tried other cultured (European-style) butters? The Plugra butter that you tried is made in a different style from the dominant "sweet cream" style of most US-made butters. It has a tangier taste due to the culture treatment (fermentation) and also has a higher butterfat content than most US-produced butters. If it tasted "off" to you, perhaps it had been on the store shelves too long as you suggest, but I wonder if it is the "cultured" taste that turned you off.

I use Plugra (European-style from PA) or Lurpak (Danish) unsalted butter for cooking and baking. I like the salted butters from KerryGold (Ireland) and Vermont Creamery for spreading on bread, etc. The bottom line for me is that the "tang" of cultured butter is preferable to the "sweet cream" blandness of Land-o-Lakes, etc.

In the opening chapter of Kitchen Confidential, Tony Bourdain describes his first childhood exposure to French butter:

The butter tasted strangely "cheesy" to my undeveloped palate.

Later, in typically rebellious fashion, he decided to embrace French food:

For the rest of that summer, I ate everything [...] I scooped gooey Vacherin, learned to love the cheesy, rich Normandy butter, especially slathered on baguettes and dipped in bitter hot chocolate.

So pehaps there is more to it than just fresh vs. covered-up-with-salt.

[edsel]

Thank you for that cultured butter link, Helen. It never occurred to me that re-pasteurizing the cream might be necessary. I'll have to try that next time I do the D-I-Y cultured butter experiment.

One other thought occurred to me about salted butter: I've long assumed that it's better to use unsalted butter, adding salt to it as appropriate. But I was struck by stories of Alain Passard and his vegetable cookery at L'Arpège. He always seems to specify salted butter for cooking the vegetables. Is there something special about the salted butter in France? Is it a matter of cooking chemistry?

[boulak]

I can't quite grasp your comment about using salted butter in yeasted doughs....Could you explain it in a little more depth?

Boulak: The primary intent of my remark re salted butter in breads, is that there is no overwhelming reason not to use the salted type, particularly as the fresh butter is, for many budgets, fairly more expensive. As you have reiterated, it is important to remember to adjust the salt called for in a recipe should one be using salted butter for another unsalted fat, or vice versa. For many bread recipes, bakers may be amenable to using less costly fats; concomitantly, they may be satisfied that vegetable oil, for example, works just as well as butter. However, I think it is inarguable that there are some very special rich and festive breads (such as brioche, Danish, Stollen, and certain Holiday loaves) where only high-quality butter will make the standard.

Fat coats gluten molecules, so they can't amalgamate as easily, contributing to the baked bread's tenderness. Fat added to bread dough has the effect of making the gluten in the flour more supple, while simultaneously hindering its development. This means that the richer dough must be kneaded for a longer time and the finished product will be very smooth & soft. If an excessive amount of fat is to be used (as in a brioche), the dough will be so limp & sticky at the outset that the ordinary method of kneading cannot be used to develop the gluten sufficiently.

The action of the yeast is also inhibited by the fat: A small amount of fat in a bread recipe will produce a slower rising dough and the texture of the baked bread will be finer & closer. Moreover, salt acts as a control for the yeast action in breads – specifically, it helps to control the rate of fermentation. During periods of hot, humid weather, additional salt can retard a faster-than-usual rising phase.

←

Thanks for responding Redsugar. To continue the discussion rather than dispute your comments and hopefully to avoid stating the obvious, I would like to add some comments more as dialogue rather than rebuttal.

What I had difficulty following was the fact that although your science was accurate, your statement that you could see no reason not to use salted butter seemed the antithesis of your previous statements .

Fat does inhibit the development of gluten as it can coat or encapsulate the flour particles which then impedes their ability to absorb liquids. For gluten to develop, flour and liquid must be combined by some type of mixing. Only then can the proteins untangle and align as gluten.

And yes, when making brioche et al, an intensive mix is required. However, much of the mixing process is done while adding the butter gradually(which allows for full gluten development). Any product undergoing an intensive mix is likely to have a close crumb, but definitely, fat does lubricate gluten strands which results in closer grained crumb.

Salt does indeed control fermentation, but no baker I know adds salt to a dough to control fermentation in warmer weather. Possibly to a preferment, but not a dough. This is done by controlling the dough temperature and the environment. Maybe, maybe by reducing yeast, but not by increasing salt. It might be done in some shops, but remember salt has many more functions than controlling fermentation.

Redsugar, again, I would like to thank you for responding and I enjoy reading your well informend posts. Please do not mistake my response for being argumentative.