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When a dessert recipe such as peanut butter cookies calls for unsalted butter and a separate teaspoon salt, will using salted butter alter the flavor considerably? Also, how can I ensure that my peanut butter cookies come out soft?

Ask Me Anything (Office half Hour)

Dan Marek - Ask Me Anything (Office half Hour)

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This event was on June 20, 2023

Join Chef Dan Marek in his virtual office as he welcomes all of your questions. This event was created for you and we encourage you to Ask Anything – from cooking techniques to course-specific questions, to how to turn your cooking passion into profit or simply hearing the perspective of a professional chef, Chef Dan is ready to answer them all.

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Question

Sylvia Lynch

When a dessert recipe such as peanut butter cookies calls for unsalted butter and a separate teaspoon salt, will using salted butter alter the flavor considerably? Also, how can I ensure that my peanut butter cookies come out soft?

Answer

So typically, uh, unsalted butter is used for baking and salted butter is used for more savory items. Now if this recipe is calling for unsalted butter and then, um, you know, a separate teaspoon of salt, you're basically adding the salt back into it. Now the specific amount is yet to be determined. A lot of people actually use a salted butter because there's more moisture content in the butter as well. So I would probably stick to the recipe to be able to make sure that you're getting those soft cookies at the same time. Um, you know, so yeah, let me just read, read this and sure that my peanut butter yeah, come out soft. So I would probably stick to the recipe as much as you can on this. Um, you know, if you're trying to reduce the salt, the salted butter versus the teaspoon of salt are probably gonna be pretty equal, but I'd have to measure to be able to see what kind of butter you're using compared to other ones as well. Um, if it's a vegan butter, if it's a regular butter, you know, there's a lot of equations that can happen to that. So it's typically better to be able to stick to the recipe if you can.

Dan Marek

Director of Plant-Based Culinary & Dev

*Dan Marek* is a chef educator who has been teaching vegan and vegetarian cooking for over 15 years. At Rouxbe, he is our Director of Plant-Based Culinary and Development where he helps develop content, classes and builds courses for many of our partners. Dan is a board member of Slow Food Austin, the Institute of Child Nutrition, and Conscious Capitalism. He has earned his BA in Journalism from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University and holds certificates in Nutrition from Cornell University. Prior to his role with Rouxbe, Dan worked with Whole Kids Foundation training teachers and food service at schools across the country on nutrition and culinary best practices. He also worked as a Healthy Eating Educator at Whole Foods Market’s flagship store in Austin, TX, was a personal chef for some of Austin’s elite business people, taught classes in culinary techniques at Austin Community College, The Natural Epicurean, and Le Cordon Bleu. Dan also regularly volunteers cooking or speaking about nutrition for the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, Marathon Kids, Health Alliance for Austin Musicians, and the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Austin and Central Texas.