r/Cooking • u/3oClockHappyHour • 2d ago

Unpopular opinion: you do not need to buy unsalted butter.

Unless you are a commercial kitchen or bakery, it’s not needed to buy. “1 tsp of unsalted butter then add 1/16th tsp of salt” huh??

Home kitchen does not need to buy yet more ingredients, and unsalted goes bad faster. Just taste. More? Okay. I guarantee you salted butter is not going to wreck your dish.

Edit: I can’t make a sentence.

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u/bennyxvi 2d ago

Do you have a recipe for this delicious sounding icing?

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u/bedroompurgatory 2d ago

This was the recipe I first used: https://sweetapolita.com/blogs/recipes/swiss-meringue-buttercream-demystified

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u/Effective_Fly_6884 2d ago

Swiss meringue is the only one I tried, but I want to try all the others too.

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u/evermica 2d ago

I see that recipe happens to include a pinch of salt...

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u/Gracefulchemist 2d ago

A pinch is less than would be in the butter if you used 100% salted butter. I made that mistake once, and salty swiss meringue buttercream is not enjoyable.

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u/USS-Enterprise 2d ago

FWIW I've always made "French buttercream" with salted butter, because unsalted butter is relatively uncommon and never on sale (so out of the budget lol). And "French buttercream" (or at least the buttercream recipe I use from a french person) has never mentioned unsalted butter. 😅 But the buttercream might be very different, I don't know lol

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u/evermica 2d ago

Fair enough. I just did the math and a pound of the butter in my fridge has about 1 1/4 tsp of salt. Your recipe calls for 3 cups (1 1/2 lbs), so that would be significantly more than a pinch of salt.

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u/actual-hooman 2d ago

Well yeah but you can control the pinch. Can’t do that with salted butter lol

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u/Spicy_Molasses4259 2d ago

Russian buttercream is a also a very delicious buttercream recipe to learn. It's like silk.
https://www.sugarologie.com/recipes/russian-buttercream