Page 32 - Pie It Forward: Pies, Tarts, Tortes, Galettes, and Other Pastries Reinvented

And then I take a deep breath, count to ten, eat a piece of pie,
find my inner baker’s calm, and actually answer the question like
an adult.

First, salt is a preservative. Its use in products like butter is to
extend shelf life. This means the salted butter in your grocer’s
cold case is very likely to be older than the unsalted butter.
Fresher is better.

Second, just because salt is a preservative doesn’t mean there
isn’t something about the butter that can’t go a little off during that

extra time it spends hanging around waiting for you to stroll down
the refrigerated aisle and give it a second glance. That butter has
a chance to pick up a few things, and what it ends up acquiring is
what I like to call “butter funk,” a smell and taste reminiscent of a
communal dirty-laundry sack in a pro football locker room. I have
an uncanny ability to identify any product made with salted butter
that had lingering funk, and I’ll have none of it in my own work.

Third, no one is going to tell me how much salt to put into my
recipe. I’m making everything from scratch, so why would I want

someone shoving salt willy-nilly into my glorious butter products?
That’s my job!