Why unsalted butter?

I finally learned why "Unsalted" butter is best for baking.... and figured I'd tell you too since I know a lot of folks wonder.

I was never much of a butter fan. Hey I'm cheap I admit it. When I can buy margerine quarters for 69 cents a lb why would I spend the $2-$4 a pound on butter? Well... lemme show you.

A while back an email was circulating around and it basically explained that margerine was exactly 1 ingredient away from being plastic. Being something of a self proclaimed urban legend geek and figuring the butter industry was just out there trying to drum up extra sales, I decided to do a little research.

Heading off to my fav urban legend site, www.urbanlegends.com I typed in Butter vs. Margerine and what to my poor little eyes did I find? ACK! Margerine surely IS but 1 molecular ingredient away from being plastic. See below:

http://www.snopes.com/food/warnings/butter.asp

Oh my poor heart. I've been injesting Margerine for all these horrible years... what a fool I've been. I should have listened to my non-cooking mother all those family holidays when she'd say PLEASE get real butter and I'd show up w/my wonderful offering of Country Crock or whatever was on sale margerine for less than 50 cents a pound. She'd shake her head and say I asked for Butter. I'd say - what do you think that is??!?!?!! :) Silly me.

ok all of that not just to promote the Butter industry to you - but the reason for unsalted butter in your baking.

Recently I made a batch of Thumbprint cookies. I love thumbprint cookies. I used salted butter. You can never have too much salt in my opinion. Well I rolled those babies out, I imprinted them and I squeezed the jam into them... and then I baked them.

And then... I tasted them. And almost spit it out. The recipe (which I'll share later) calls for unsalted butter, and also like a teaspoon of salt. Well I being the smarty pants that I am decided to use my salted butter (Who wants to run out to the store at after 10 at night when I usually decide I want to bake???) Man oh man were those babies salty. Saltier than any self respecting cookie has a right to be! Do you think I considered ommitting the salt since I'd used salted butter? no! Of course not!

The whole point of unsalted butter is seriously to allow you to control the amount of salt in your baking delicacies. There... all of that above and I finally spit it out. If you don't want your guests running to the nearest tap for water after you've decided to strut your culinary prowress at the next dinner party, take my advice - use unsalted butter! :)

Kisha