Why do you use unsalted butter in cakes?

Answer 1

Salted butter is not usually as fresh as unsalted butter. The salt is used as a preservative, not for seasoning. If you want a better answer, watch the Food Network show Good Eatsby Alton Brown.

Answer 2

It is possible that the salt interferes with some other process in the particular recipe, and that it needs to be added later. For instance, when making muffins, you cannot add the acid (lemon juice, tartar, vitamin C, whatever) before mixing all the other ingredients and adding the baking soda, because you will fizzle out the baking soda before the muffins make it to the oven...pfffft! Mushy muffins. So either the acid or the soda must be added just before baking.

On the other hand, many recipe directions are ridiculous and make no difference to the end result - some people are just very good at making simple processes appear complicated.

My opinion would be to use as little salt as you can justify since this crap is one of the major causes of cardiovascular disease in human beings.

I have found that sometimes the recipe calls for unsalted butter and then adds salt later because the author of the recipe doesn't really know how much salt is in salted butter. Therefore if you use unsalted butter then you can control exactly how much salt is in your recipe. And I agree, the less salt the better. It does bring out the other flavours in a dish though.

Answer 3

Because it is better then salted butter

More information:

Salted butter can be produced with lower quality butter; unsalted butter is more likely to be fresh and highest quality. Also, it is difficult to determine exactly how much salt is needed in a recipe if there is already salt in the butter.

Answer 4

do you want a salty cake