Smbc: Unsalted Or Salted Butter? Margarine?
Baking By AKA_cupcakeshoppe Updated 8 Apr 2011 , 5:38pm by robbynjaye
I am tempted to give SMBC another try and wanted to ask if you guys use unsalted or salted butter only, a combo of both? have any of you tried it with margarine?
I ask this because butter is SO expensive here. like the price of 1 stick is equal to the price of 2 to 3 sticks of margarine. the unsalted butter is even WAY more expensive maybe. So please let me know. as I haven't had much luck with it in the past I really don't wanna spend a lot of money and not get it right.
TIA! 
I have done all of them. The salted gives a little less sweeter taste, the unsalted is good. As far as the margarine....I have used it for family and freebies, but definitely not in hot weather. It has a very high water content instead of fat like the real butter. But it still tastes great!
wow. thanks! i will definitely keep that in mind. 
have a good week!
As far as I know, margarine won't work. The salted butter makes for a pretty (nasty) salted buttercream with that recipe. So, sorry to your pocketbook, but its unsalted butter all the way. Can you try getting it thru a wholesaler to make it cheaper? I know I'm paying less than $2/# that way, and I'm in Alaska.
i have no idea where to get wholesale butter. i'm in a little town in the philippines and we only have one cake supply store. i have to rely on groceries that don't stock things like butter. i remember last christmas season there was no butter and or cheese in the whole city. it was ridiculous.
so... unsalted butter it is, huh? LOL sorry pay check.
am not really selling anything right now. i use margarine for cookies and such. butter is really hard to come by around here. but for SMBC i guess i have to use butter.
It has a very high water content instead of fat like the real butter.
There seem to be some misconceptions about the fat and water content of margarine, salted and unsalted butter:
(Margarine & salted butter are the same, while unsalted butter can have a slightly higher water content.)
http://tinyurl.com/hresc
(Chart showing compostion of salted, unsalted & whipped butter.)
Difference between butter and margarine:
http://www.ochef.com/864.htm
HTH
wow. thanks for that JanH! i didn't know that. it's really cool, thanks so much!
so it really boils down to flavor, but doesn't everything? thanks again.
I always use unsalted, then add the salt that is needed. The salt content in salted butter varies widely and can potentially ruin your baking by adding too much salt.
For non-dairy - frosting recipes containing margarine, shortening, and high-ratio shortening are all possibilities, although I think an american style vs a SMBC or IMBC would be more stable. I know there are a lot of frosting recipes here that use those rather than butter. To be fair, I don't use them at all so can't recommend a "best bet" option out of those.
I know this is an old post, but I use salted butter. I tried unsalted butter and it tasted like something was off. i just couldnt get the taste I wanted. So I went back to salted butter and now my buttercream frosting is awsome! I get many requests to sell it in a tub form. It's the best around. So it all depends on preference and amounts of your other ingredients.
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