What difference does salted vs. unslated butter make in a recipe?

I found this from Nestlé Very Best Baking- Baking Helpweb page. The answers are from Gale Gand who is a famous pastry Chef. She has a show on FoodTV and I love it!!! This page also had some other very helpful answers to other questions.


The basic difference between using salted and unsalted butter is you can controll the amount of salt in your recipe. Some people are salt sensitive or have high blood pressure, like me, and are always looking for hidden salt in foods, especially if they are processed at all. But the baking results are they same, just the taste (more salty)is different. The other reason I use it alot is, salt is a natural preservative so stores can keep salted butter longer than unsalted butter. It is sort of a guarantee that it's fresher than it's salted counterpart.

Here are some other tidbits.

Unsalted butter has a shelf life of around 3 months refrigerated because it contains no preservatives. Salted butter has a longer shelf life (up to 5 months) because salt acts as a preservative. However, salt can overpower the sweet flavor of the butter and can also mask any odors. The amount of salt added to salted butter can vary from manufacturer to manufacturer and it is hard to know how much extra salt to add to your recipe. The rule of thumb is that if you are substituting salted for unsalted butter in a recipe, omit the extra salt in the recipe (i.e. Omit ¼ teaspoon of salt per 1/2 cup of butter).

joyofbaking

To put it simple, my grand mother said salted butter was for serving and unsalted was for cooking. Depending on what you are cooking there is a difference.

"Plugras" is excellent sweet US butter. Reasonable at Trader Joe's. Made by Keller's in Harleysville, Low moisture content makes it super for pastry.
Have come to appreciate sweer butter at the table.

Salt butter for Cajun!

Another interesting fact about butter is that it is a natural thikening agent during cook (funny huh!). When you sautee foods, such as diced chicken, when you do it on a low temperature (to prevent scorching), the butter actually reduces and thickens into a very tasty sauce. We often use minced garlic and other spices to make a lovely sauce.... even better... use whole cream and S-L-O-W-L-Y reduce this mixture on LOW heat... the cream will break if you cook too high a heat.

We often sautee chicken breast with butter and garlic, add cream, reduce it and then serve it over fresh steamed broccoli on top of a baked potato.

Thanks for all the input, yuummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm sher sounds positively yummy!!!!