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What effects would using salted butter instead of unsalted butter have on a toffee recipe?

I'm using the basic

  • Equal parts butter and sugar
  • Heat to soft crack (285 F)
  • Poor into flat cooking sheet or something similar to cool
rumtscho
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squillman
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1 Answers1

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Besides the obvious - your toffee will have more salt in it? Salted butter also contains more water than unsalted butter, and varies more on both salt and moisture content on a brand-by-brand basis than unsalted butter. A higher percent of water means less fat, so after the water cooks out, your ratio of fat to sugar will be off somewhat.

Bob
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  • Great! That bit about the fat to sugar ratio is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks! – squillman Jan 23 '11 at 18:53
  • AFAIK salted butter has typically 1 to 1.5 percent less fat than unsalted butter, not more water. The salt mostly displaces fat in the manufacturing process. Butter is typically a product with more than 80% dairy fat. If the manufacturer goes to 1% salt (400mg sodium per 100g) it has ~0.8% less fat. No much to worry about – TFD Apr 06 '11 at 00:58
  • I think that you guys should go and comment in http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/13782/what-different-uses-do-we-assign-to-salted-butter-vs-unsalted-butter as none of the answers mention anything about the water/fat content of the butter – AntonioMO Apr 06 '11 at 09:52