If you do not have unsalted butter, can you use salted butter.

[Winterybella]

I am glad I stumbled on this. I am the newbie "from scratch baker" still, and for a little while wondered about this and never asked here or researched it. It has to be because I had the unsalted butter on hand every time I baked. I did a quick search and saw something to suggest that the substitution should not be a problem. Like someone said, if you are going to use salted butter instead of unsalted and the recipe calls for salt you would omit the actual salt. That seems reasonable even for a newbie like me. I will continue to research this though.

 

[Zyni]

It can make a difference if what you are baking has a very delicate flavor, but I often used salted butter and then just left out the salt the recipe called for. For many things, it works just fine. I do usually try to follow the recipe precisely if I am making something for the first time though.

 

[confettine]

I always found it troublesome to hold on to two kinds of butter -- but I never really liked salty butter, though. I usually bought semi-salted, and it was very good at fitting in everything! I mean, most of the baking I do always require at least a pinch of salt, or sometimes a teaspoon, so there is so leeway. Semi-salted is optimal for me.

 

[Zyni]

Hmm. I haven't seen semi-salted butter in my area. That would be a good option. I will pay more attention and see if I come across any.

Yeah, I don't keep two different kinds of butter around either, usually. Sometimes, I'll grab a package of unsalted butter if I know I"m going to be doing a lot of baking.

 

[Joanna]

I had to swap over to salted butter as I ran out of unsalted. Didn't seem to make too much of a difference to the cake I was making.

 

[Shimus]

It really doesn't. If it's the same type just unsalted/salted, then there is basically no real taste difference.

However, if you're not used to the type of salted butter you normally use, you'll be able to notice it right away. It's slight, but you can just tell something is off. So the real answer is just stick to the type of butter you like regardless of the salt. But unsalted is better to bake with because it adds less sodium into the mix and for people with problems it's more healthy to do it that way.

 

[Diane Lane]

I usually try to keep both on hand, and recently found myself with the opposite problem. The recipe I was making (baking) called for butter, but didn't specify, which means salted. All I had was unsalted, because butter has gone up significantly, and I just hadn't stocked up in a while. I substituted the unsalted for salted, and then forgot to add salt later. I couldn't tell the difference, and the end product was delicious.