Unsalted butter, especially in baking recipes, is a throwback to when we used butter that wasn't manufactured to specifications or stored appropriately, so lots/varying amounts of salt would be used to preserve it and/or cover up spoilage, so unsalted was preferred to be able to control the salt >>

My dark secret is that I tend to only by unsalted as it just feels like I then have more control over the total salt level. But I also try not to use a lot of butter in general.

>> levels and be assured of fresh butter. Now we can generally control for typical salt amounts in commercial butter, and ironically, since unsalted is less popular, it is also probably less fresh than salted butter at the same store. Zero shame. Use salted.