Q: How can I freeze peaches without having them turn brown? I cut a small “X” in the bottom, blanch them, drop them in ice water, peel them and slice them into plastic containers.

A: You’re doing everything right except for one step: You need to mix the fruit with fruit juice or a little sugar and add some kind of acid to keep them from turning brown. Usually, that’s ascorbic acid, sold as the product Fruit Fresh, or you can toss the peaches with a little sugar and lemon juice, let them stand about 15 minutes to dissolve the sugar, then freeze them.

Butter: salt or not?

Q: I’m confused. Recipes call for butter with no salt and then add salt. Why not skip a step and use salted butter?

A: There are two reasons that doesn’t work well. First, salt is used as a preservative, so salted butter sometimes doesn’t taste as fresh. Even when you’re using high-quality salted butter, the formula for the amount of salt added varies. So you can’t predict how salty it will taste.

That can be difficult, especially in baking when it’s hard to taste raw batters and doughs. It’s easier to use unsalted butter and add the amount of salt called for in the recipe.

— Email questions to kpurvis@charlotteobserver.com