Butter in pie

[graceandrews]

I have enjoyed making pies in the past few years since having children. I am still tweaking my apple pie recipe, and today baked three for a school fund-raiser. My question is concerning butter. I have an old cookbook that calls for butter or margarine for a crumb topping. Is all margarine salted? I know that butter comes in salted and unsalted. I know butter has a nicer flavor (once you get used to the change), but if a recipe calls for just butter, which do I use? Thank you!

 

[Andy M.]

In baking, unsalted butter is most commonly called for. However, if your recipe is older than about 10 years, it probably was made with regular (salted) butter. Either way, I'd bet there won't be a difference important enough to cause comment.

Of course, you could always experiment...

 

[Shunka]

I use the regular (salted) butter for crumb toppings for pies. The little bit of salt helps to bring out the other flavors in the pie.

 

[Constance]

I usually use the regular salted butter, also. And please don't use margarine...if you're gonna have a pie, have a pie. Besides, margarine has stuff in it that's not good for you either.
They call that rationalization.

 

[amber]

I've used both butter and unsalted butter in crumb toppings, and really didnt notice a difference, so try the unsalted butter. I would shy away from margarine for crumb topping because it's mostly oil.