Can you tell the difference?

*Shudder!* And I like black beans!

Probably applesauce subbed for butter...

Dave

Reply to
Dave Bell
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You think Applesauce? They usually don't turn out dry if you do that. They don't taste the same, I agree but not dry. Maybe she used navy beans for that! LOL

Chris

Dave Bell wrote:

Reply to
chris

OK, that's just frightening. It didn't even occur to me that it could be another type of bean!

marcella

Reply to
Marcella Peek

That's not my opinion -- it was the result of a Cooks Illustrated test about five years ago.

I'll have to see if Robert Wolke has ever touched on the subject...

-- Larry

Reply to
pltrgyst

Cook's Illustrated articles can't be accessed unless you're a subscriber, Larry. I'm not. I looked for Wolke on the subject and couldn't find anything online.

Harold McGee has written about it in the revised and updated edition of "On Food and Cooking." He says, generalizing, that butters made in the U.S. have between 1% and 2% salt, rounded figures. That would, at the extreme ends of that range, be between one and two teaspoons per pound. That is between 1/4 and 1/2 teaspoon per stick of butter. 1/32 of a teaspoon or 1/64 of a teaspoon of salt per tablespoon butter. The "highly variable" range is 1/32 of a teaspoon of salt.

Here's the calculation: If you look at the sodium content of the butter in your fridge, you can calculate that there's about a teaspoon and a quarter in the whole pound of butter. The numbers below are so small that they need to be rounded unless we want a multi-page treatise. Rounding throws off the precision, but still lets it fall within reasonable approximations.

The usual ratio shown in the nutrition panel is 90 milligrams of sodium in 14 grams (1 tablespoon) of butter. Sodium comprises about 40% of the weight of salt. That means roughly 225 milligrams or .225 grams of salt in a tablespoon of butter. Those numbers are rounded, but they're close enough. Extending that ratio to the whole pound brings you to 32 tablespoons X .225 grams = 7.2 grams salt per pound of butter. Various reliable sources give rounded numbers that range from 7 grams salt per pound up to about 9 grams per pound. When you think that 1 ounce = 28 grams, these are small numbers and a variation like this is essentially meaningless unless it's a serious health issue for some critical condition.

A cup of salt weighs about 12 ounces. A teaspoon of salt (1/48 of a cup) weighs about 1/4 ounce or 7 grams. A pound of butter is 2 cups volume and 454 grams weight.

A whole pound of butter will have about 1 1/4 teaspoons salt or about .3 ounces by weight or about 8.8 grams. One

1/4-pound (1/2 cup) stick of butter would have about .3 of a teaspoon salt or 2.1 grams and a tablespoon would have about .26 grams. About 1/4 of one gram of salt per tablespoon of butter; about 0.04 teaspoons, or less than 1/100 of an ounce of salt.

Here's the U.S.D.A. database for "butter, salted" Note that it says 82 milligrams sodium per tablespoon butter. Rather close to the 90 mg, rounded, I cited.

Here it is for "butter without salt" It says that there's 2 milligrams of sodium in unsalted butter. That means that 80 milligrams of salt is added to a tablespoon butter. Well within the range implied by the rounding of the basic numbers.

"Types of Butter Salted Butter The most common kind of butter, made from cream, and containing about 2% salt. Reduced and Low Salt Butters "Reduced salt" or "low-salt" butter usually has about

1% salt, half as much as standard butter. Unsalted butter has none, of course, but it doesn't keep as long; salt increases the shelf life as well as changing the taste. Cultured Butter Cultured, sour cream, or Danish-style butter has some selected culture is added to the cream and a different flavor develops, which is more acidic. Dairy Blends Dairy blends are a mix of butter and vegetable oil (up to 50%). They taste like butter, but have less milkfat, obviously, and are easier to spread after refrigeration. Ghee Ghee, or clarified butter, is essentially just the milkfat and not the solids from the butter. It is often used for frying. Whey butter Whey butter is made from cream that has been separated from milk whey. This type of cream is left over from cheese making, which uses the curds of the milk and squeezes out the whey.

The use of butter is a cultural thing; for example, Northern Europeans and their descendants around the world use butter where Southern Europeans would use olive oil. Butter was forbidden on fast days and during Lent for Catholics, and one of Martin Luther's complaints against the Roman Catholic Church was the choice they required between importing olive oils from Italy with their attendant taxes, or buying indulgences allowing people to eat butter. He felt this was the Church's way of gaining revenue from Northern Europe. In

1520, he wrote that "Eating butter, they say, is a greater sin than to lie, blaspheme, or indulge in impurity." This everyday issue may have helped Protestantism catch on in countries where butter was a common part of the diet.

Sources: Carlson, Laurie Wynn. Cattle: An Informal Social History. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2001.

formatting link
site has wonderfully whimsical notes with good information...

"Anyways, here is how you make butter -" ... and it goes on to explain how with tongue in cheek. Good for a grin and good for actual information.

Happy butter to all...

Pastorio

Reply to
Bob (this one)

Bob,

I'm not a baker, but I do cook a lot. For the things that I prepare, such as sauces, I'm more likely to be concerned about the results of using a stick of butter (0.25 lb.) or more than those that use a pat. For those cases, yes, I would think that 1/4 to 1/2 tsp is "highly variable."

For recipes using a pat or two, I'd agree with you that it's negligible.

BTW, thanks for all the posted information.

-- Larry

Reply to
pltrgyst

I did in all my restaurants and in my functions as a research chef, as well. I still do as a consultant, recipe designer, and food writer. I formulate recipes for commercial products ranging from salad dressings, through seasoned oils and vinegars, to preserves, fruit juice curds, baked goods, and detailed restaurant menu offerings. Many of them use butter.

Puhleeze. You take numbers used as generalizations to illustrate the extremes of the *rounded* range as exact figures. Bad form.

It's unfortunate that you delete the actual calculations to make your point. And that you seem to gloss the real and demonstrated statements that say that butter in the U.S. contains about 1.25 teaspoons salt per pound per label requirements.

And if you're using a whole stick of butter in a sauce, the total volume should be very easily able to absorb the salt of the butter as a flavoring agent, virtually no matter what sauce it is. Monter au beurre takes very little butter and the flavor essentially disappears, so I have to assume you're talking about maybe Hollandaise or Bearnaise or other butter-based sauces. I defy anyone to tell the difference between salted and unsalted in a quart of Hollandaise. The salted might taste a tiny bit better. Maybe.

But when it's all said and done, you're guessing since you say you don't use salted butter.

I haven't seen anything to support that "highly variable" assertion beyond, well, the assertion. The calculations I offered with chemical analysis say exactly the opposite. It's not nice to cherry pick for debate points.

Use it in good health. We're done here, I think.

Pastorio

Reply to
Bob (this one)

I agree with everything you said. I just want to clarify (no pun intended) the point that we discussed two different sources of 'butter flavor' - here you're referring to that which comes from ageing the butter, but we also discussed the milk solids precipitated out during the crystallization phase of the butter manufacture process - that being whey proteins and caseinates, which don't increase over time. Well, the caseinates might, I forget if they're manufactured by bacteria. =20

Reply to
Eric Jorgensen

Not "bad form" at all. They're called "boundary conditions," and that's what mathematicians use when they're calculating variances (maxima and minima), as you probably well know.

Well, obviously, we used to. We haven't for about five years now.

You too.

-- Larry

Reply to
pltrgyst

There's a difference between objective "boundary conditions" and editing to create new ones to suit the polemic.

*Rounded* range limits to be used as though they were *exact* figures applied to distinct data points.

Bad form.

Pastorio

Reply to
Bob (this one)

In article , Merry wrote: = = Frank103 wrote: = > I have heard that pastry chefs usually prefer unsalted butter rather than = > salted butter. When it comes to cakes and cookies, can you actually taste = > the difference between salted and unsalted butter? I guess people who are = > professionals can but can most others tell the difference? thanks in = > advance. = > Frank = I use unsalted butter- most recipes call for salt anyway, so why ruin = what you are making with more. If I must use salted, I reduce the = amount of salt called for in the recipe

I must say that I've often wondered as Frank has done. How much salt *is* there is a stick of "lightly salted butter" (as it says on the package)?

Considering all the variables in cooking, it really puzzles me that the little bit of salt in salted butter will make *that* much difference to the final product. Consider just the variability in eggs, for example. Yes, I know the "standard" size is, what, USDA "Large"? I don't know about the eggs y'all buy, but the ones I get vary all over the place. I suspect that sizes vary from a miniscule amount above the next smaller "standard" size to a similar bit below the next larger. And consider flour. No matter how you measure it. Whether you measure by weight or by volume, unless the flour is from the same batch, has been stored and will be used under precisely the same conditions as the person who created the recipe, you are unlikely to use precisely the same amount that he did.

Consider for example, two packages of flour from the same batch. One is stored in my house at 6500 feet above sea level here in the desert (US) southwest, humidity often single-digit; the other in my sister's house, a stone's throw from the Ohio River (about 600 feet above see level) in humid, sometimes 90+%, West Virginia. No matter how you measure it, you won't get the same amount both places. Other examples abound.

And we're going to worry about the bit of salt in a tablespoon, a stick, even a pound, of butter?

Reply to
Charlie Sorsby

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