Ok, so first off, we won't even entertain the debate about using real butter or substitutes. If you're not using real butter and you're NOT a vegan, just stop it. I get that substitutes might be cheaper...but eventually, endeavor to bring butter back into your life at some point. The taste and texture of everything is instantly better. Plus, do we really need to dig into all the chemicals associated with fake food? (I said I wasn't going to debate this, so let me stop.)
Ok, now that we got that outta the way...
My entire baking life, I've been told to always use unsalted butter in baking. "You don't want to have salty cookies!" My grandmother. My mother. Recipes everywhere. I never questioned it, other than to side eye the rationale, because quite frankly, salted butter never tasted especially salty to me. (Thank you, American diet at play.) One day while in an unsalted butter quandary and not having any in-house, I threw caution to the wind and used that salted butter. OH SNAP. My oven didn't explode. The cookies looked the same. And by effing George, they didn't taste any different either.
w.
t.
h.
Have I been lied to my whole entire life?
Sidebar: My mother eats saltines with unsalted tops. I imagine this is what they feed people in purgatory. (Because in hell you aren't eating anything, I'm guessing.) But I digress...
I HAVE BEEN REDEEMED.
LEGIT: Salted Butter is not going to harm your cookies, cakes, cobblers, kids, friends, family, et al. And Chef Max from The Chopping Block's blog says so, too! "Most foods we eat that are considered “properly seasoned” clock in at between 1.5-2.0% salt by weight (you’ll have to take my word for it, but it’s true), and we can plug in the nutrition info for the butters pictured below (a good representation of the salted butters that you are likely to encounter: Plugra, Kerrygold, Organic Valley salted, and Organic Valley Cultured) to discover that most all salted butter is between 1.3-1.8% salt by weight. This means most all salted butters fall under our description of “properly seasoned.” That means that just eaten by itself salted butter is not egregiously salty. Thus it stands to reason that unless your dish is already too salty, it is physically impossible to over-season it with salted butter."
So I am here to tell you: get your salted butter on, friends. It doesn't matter. And next time someone questions your use of salted butter, let them know that the earth is not going to tilt off of its axis - scout's honor!