can you believe BJ's wholesale didn't have unsalted butter?! so I had to buy shortening, since Crisco says you can use it instead of butter.
are they really interchangeable in cake or cookie recipes?! has anyone tried it?! I need to bake, my kitchen is calling me and I can't! I have a lemon cake I want to try out! help!

Shortening and butter aren't always interchangable. I think salted butter or margarine would be a better substitute for unsalted butter in some things.

for the most part the only time you can't use salted butter is in things like meringue buttercreams but for most cakes and cookies you can salted butter without issue, I do all the time. Sometimes I'll omit or reduce the salt if its called for in the recipe though. I'd much rather use salted butter than crisco or shortening

That's strange. The BJ's where I live sells unsalted butter.

If your recipe says butter, use butter, I wouldn't substitue shortening or margarine, they aren't necessarily interchangeable. If your recipe calls for unsalted butter but then says to add salt, then I would just use salted butter and not add the salt at all, well, depending on how much it says to add of each. If you need 1 stick of butter and 1 teaspoon salt, you might need to add about 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon of salt. But that depends on how salty your brand of butter is.

Best way to tell, melt about a tablespoon of butter. Then taste the "foamy" butter fat part. Please don't anyone fuss at me, It's not scientific, it's not technical, it's taste and it's subjective (I like butter, no I love butter I like a little popcorn with my butter). I just know know that the butter that I buy is pretty salty, so I tend to leave out the salt.

I actually compared margarine, unsalted butter and salted butter to my best friend this way so that she could understand the difference. She thought Parkay was butter because it was in a stick. I love her but I still pick on her about that one.