"Default" Butter: Salted or Sweet?

[waves2ya]

Greetings.

Please forgive me as this question seems so basic - but I searched the forum to no avail and you folks have nothing like a FAQ on q's 'pinned'...

My lovely French wife has done a lot of baking. Not here, mind you, but somewhere in another life - and it is delightful when she gets to it here, too. Well the other day she was trading notes with a rather prolific American baker. The two (naturally) were comparing techniques and when it came to butter the American said that... "any American recipe that calls for butter, and does not specify the kind of butter (sweet or salty or... whatever) infers the use of salty butter". Well - the sig ot was pretty aghast. The French take is, given the same parameters, that the default is the use of sweet (no salt) butter.

Of course, she looked at me (as tho' I'm the silly American who started this) and said "... and if you want salt, you add it!"

Can 'pastry & baking' gulletteers weigh in on this conundrum...?

[bloviatrix]

That sounds completely wrong to me. Every baking book I own always says that when the generic term butter is used they mean sweet butter. Never salted.

[fiftydollars]

Sorry... I thought this thread involved yak butter... somehow

[artisanbaker]

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=32132&hl=

here's a link to a previous discussion we had about butter.

breton butter "demi sel" can be quite good for various applications, pastry or not. i would not discount it and for the record it can be found stateside at places like whole foods.

anyone else try the cabot brand butter? it claims 82%.

[tan319]

I would agree about the use of sweet butter although I've seen recipes for shortbreads and "Breton" shortcrusts, amongst a few other things, that use salted butter.

I've been spending a lot of time recently with the 'Grand Livre/Desserts and Patisserie" book by Frederic Roberts and Alain Ducasse and there's more then a few recipes that call for salted butter in them.

I like to use salted butter in butter pecan ice cream and in chocolate chip cookies, which I always make lately with euro butter.

[andiesenji]

Any American cookbook with a mention of butter in a recipe, prior to the mid 1980s, would be referring to "regular" salted butter because that was the American standard. It kept longer and was more stable, or at least that was the idea put forth by the various dairy boards.

Prior to that time it was rare to see a recipe call for unsalted or "plain, unsalted, sweet cream butter" which is the way it was usually described to make sure that the reader got the message.

About that time one began to see more mentions of unsalted butter and the product began to show up more readily on market shelves.

So for about 20 years recipes have been altered to accomodate the popularity of unsalted butter but if you have old American cookbooks, you can be sure that butter means salted butter. If you read these recipes carefully, you will also note that there is less salt added to the recipes than in the more recent recipes that require unsalted butter.

If you use unsalted butter in one of the old recipes, the product will taste "flat" because the salt in the butter was factored in by the originator of the recipe.

Some friends and I had a discussion about this a few years back when we were helping set up a cooking program for a center for abused and abandoned women and children. It was simply teaching moms how to easily cook economically and nutritionally sound food and avoid the more expensive fast food stuff.

It was interesting that those of us who were my contemporaries (over 45-50) assumed that recipes meant salted butter unless unsalted was specified and the younger people assumed recipes meant unsalted, unless salted was specified.

It was at that time that we examined a lot of cookbooks of various eras and discovered what I mentioned above.

[chefpeon]

This may be Pastry Chef Blasphemy, but when I bake with unsalted butter and add or adjust

salt in the recipe vs. baking with salted butter and adding/or subtracting salt in the recipe,

I really see no difference.

As long as you know what you're using, (salted or unsalted), and you make adjustments with the salt, it's kind of a push as far as I'm concerned.

The only time I get fussy about butter is when I do roll-in doughs, like croissant or danish, or I'm making something that relies mostly on the butter for taste, like shortbread for instance.

In those cases I like to use the high butterfat butters like Plugra, or Kerrygold (my current favorite.)

[chiantiglace]

All I can say is that every single book I own states in the preface that all butter in recipes is unsalted butter. I don't know where that baker got his info from but thats rediculous.

Even if it weren't there is no reason why anyone should throw a fit, it isn't that big of a deal as C.P. clearly explains how easy it is to use either or.

To prove the unslated standar, look at every American culinary schools books they use and product, i garuntee it will be Unslated butter the majority of the time, even in culinary arts.

[alligande]

Just want to clarify usage of the "Euro butter" Irish/British butter such as Kerrygold is very diffrent from french butter as is Danish butter such as lurpak (spelling could be wrong). As I child I used to horrify french waiters by adding salt to my butter as I thought it was tastless. But I am very happy the Kerrygold is now readily available in supermarkets, as I find it much tastier on toast, potatoes etc, than most american butter but I would not bake with it as I think it has to distinctive a taste.

[andiesenji]

I was not referring to culinary school books in my post. They give details of formulas or recipes that are not found in many "regular" cookboos.

The cookbooks I described are the ordinary ones seen in any bookstore until the 80s, with the exception of the more techinical books, such as Julia's and Joy of Cooking, which did explain about the differences between salted and unsalted butter.

I have been collecting cookbooks for more than 40 years and have cooked from many of the more than 1000 that I have now. I looked through several last evening and other than in very rare instances, the only reference in a recipe was to "butter" or "butter or margarine" and there was no glossary that described what type of butter was usually called for in the book.

The rare instances which I noted were references only to "clarified" butter.

[Patrick S]

Does anyone know how much salt on average is in salted butter, as in how many teaspoons per cup or grams per ounce?

[bakerboy]

In all of my cookbooks they specify unsalted butter. If it just says "butter" then its salted butter. Thats also how i write my recipes, i specify if i'm using unsalted butter. Does it REALLY matter? Well i think in some cases it does, for example like my caramel. the salt gives it a different flavor profile.

I did find this on a site called "baking 911" and it answers patricks question.

"Generally, you can readily interchange salted and unsalted butter in a recipe without having to adjust the salt. Salted butter contains ONLY 1/8 teaspoon per stick. However, if you substitute 2 sticks of unsalted butter with 2 sticks salted butter, take out 1/4 teaspoon of salt from the recipe, if you desire -- I never bother to."

so go figure

[fiftydollars]

Does anyone know how much salt on average is in salted butter, as in how many teaspoons per cup or grams per ounce?

←

Typical American butters contain around 2% salt.

[tan319]

When I use Euro style butter I use Plugra.

Question: Does Kerrygold come in a gold foil that says 'creme de la creme' on it?

I saw a picture of Sam Mason in that Fader article or rather his mise en place and there were pounds of this butter wrapped in goldfoil with that phrase on it with European style butter written on there too.

Numerous google searchs still haven't turned up any results.

Also, IMHO, DO NOT use salted butter in, say, a lemon curd recipe.

I accidentally did once and while it wasn't so bad that I had to bin it, it made me very nervous to serve as I thought it was a bit too pronounced, and I add a pinch of salt to just about everything.

I think I mentioned in the other butter thread wandering around the 'gullet that I don't like to use those big european butters in mousses or again, a lemon creme or curd as I find it becomes all about the butter, not the main ingredient.

[alligande]

kerrygold does come in a gold wrapper, but I dont think it has creme de la creme on the wrapper. Kerrygold is a salted butter that is imported from Ireland.

[chefpeon]

I don't like to use those big european butters in mousses or again, a lemon creme or curd as I find it becomes all about the butter, not the main ingredient.

Yep, like I said, I only use the expensive euro-butters when I'm using it in something that IS

all about the butter, like in danishes, puff pastry, croissants, shortbread and the like. It's pretty

much a waste in any item that doesn't have butter as it's main attraction.

We sell Kerrygold at our little deli, and no, it doesn't say "creme de la creme" on it. But the

wrapper is gold......

[culinary bear]

Most salted butters hover around the 2% mark. Interestingly, most Welsh butters I've seen have 3% salt.

What I find amazing is that in this thread, no-one's brought up the fact that salted and unsalted butters are inherently different; it's not merely a question of the presence of absence of salt.

Most European butters (including Kerrygold) are cultured with a lactobacillus starter, giving them a pronounced buttery taste particularly attractive in baked goods. When I visited the US, I found most of your butter to be very tasteless compared to the butters I was used to; presumably the reverse of the "cheesy butter" of Anthony Bourdain's childhood visits to France.

Personally, I never substitute one for the other - I always make my shortbread with salted butter, though :)

[artisanbaker]

"salted and unsalted butters are inherently different; it's not merely a question of the presence of absence of salt"

not true. there are simply fermented cream butters and quick process butters, both of which have salted and unsalted versions.

[culinary bear]

"salted and unsalted butters are inherently different; it's not merely a question of the presence of absence of salt"

not true. there are simply fermented cream butters and quick process butters, both of which have salted and unsalted versions.

←

an erratum, then : In this country, salted and unsalted butters are inherently different.

[Patrick S]

"salted and unsalted butters are inherently different; it's not merely a question of the presence of absence of salt"

not true. there are simply fermented cream butters and quick process butters, both of which have salted and unsalted versions.

←

an erratum, then : In this country, salted and unsalted butters are inherently different.

←

You mean, different in ways other than salt content? For instance, is there some difference between Land-O-Lakes salted and Land-O-Lakes unsalted other than salt content?

[chefpeon]

an erratum, then : In this country, salted and unsalted butters are inherently different.

Ok, but my question would then be:

are the salted and unsalted butters inherently different to the common palate when used in a baked good? Would someone be able to tell the difference between a cookie made with unsalted butter with salt added to the recipe vs. using salted butter with no additional salt?

Here in Tinytown, USA, if I make something with salted butter or if I use unsalted butter and add salt.....I cannot detect a difference. They both seem to behave the same as well. They cream the same, they melt the same....they bake the same.

I'm only adamant about using unsalted butter if I want to closely control the amount of salt in a recipe.....when delicate flavors can be destroyed by too much salt. Otherwise, it doesn't matter to me.....I use what's on hand.

When moisture content is an issue, I use Plugra almost exclusively....for roll-ins, or pie doughs.

To me, moisture/fat content is more important than the salt issue, because you can make adjustments for the salt, where it's harder to adjust regarding moisture/fat.

[culinary bear]

As a very rough rule of thumb, I'd say that most (UK!) salted butters have a more pronounced buttery taste that most unsalted butters. I'm presuming that's due to a higher level of ketones and butyl- derived compounds in the salted butters.

I can detect the difference in sauces monteed with salted as opposed to unsalted-then-seasoned butter.

Am I missing something here regarding moisture content? Every butter I've ever used has been 80-82% fat, 0-3% salt, marginal protein and other bits, and the remainder of around 18%, water. Is this not the case elsewhere?

[fiftydollars]

...Am I missing something here regarding moisture content?  Every butter I've ever used has been 80-82% fat, 0-3% salt, marginal protein and other bits, and the remainder of around 18%, water.  Is this not the case elsewhere?...

←

If you add 1-2% milk solids, that's pretty close to the profile of most American butter.

[Mayhaw Man]

You might want to try to order some of this fine butter from Louisiana. The stuff is great, and I am lucky enough to be able to get all I want as it is made about 20 miles from my house. They are nice folks. You should try some.

[chefpeon]

Am I missing something here regarding moisture content?

Here is something I found on the internet explaining the properties of Plugra.....

The secret of fine bakers all over America, Plugra butter was finally introduced to the rest of America's food professionals in 1989. We use six tons of it at the Zingerman's Bakehouse every year. The name means, literally, "more fat," which is exactly what it has. Made without salt, Plugra has ten percent less water than standard butter-a butterfat content of 82 percent. (Standard American butter has 80 percent.) Its mildness and consistency make it ideal for excellent baking. Taste it next to unsalted supermarket butter and you'll immediately notice the bigger flavor, nice finish, and increased richness. Writing in Fine Cooking, Molly Stevens stated, "Plugra is remarkably smooth and satiny. Its lower melting point caused it to melt immediately in our mouth. The flavor is complex and rich, with a pleasant, tangy finish."

More fat.....less water.