How to Utilize Salt in Baking

Salt is not just used for savory applications, salt helps:

• cut down fattiness

• reduce bitterness

• contrast sweetness

• enhance flavors

When you sprinkle finishing salt on a dessert, it doesn't make it salty but reduces bitterness and allows sweetness to come forward. Delish Magazine calls this the flavor layer effect.

You can try out the impact of salt on a sweet dish by making our truffle honey panna cotta recipe or adding a touch of fior di sale to your chocolate chip cookies. Alternatively, you can try out my personal favorite, Orange Marmalade smothered Sourdough Toast with a sprinkle of flakey sea salt and heaps of cultured butter.

A scientific explanation of the flavor layer effect:

Food scientist friend and colleague, Andrew Aczel (@andrewaczel on instagram) explains this “in basic terms, salt ions are close enough in size to fit into the sugar receptors on your taste buds and thus will be perceived as sugar. But, this only works for a small amount (ie. when flakey salt is sprinkled on top of a brownie), otherwise, the salt will overwhelm your palate.”

On your tongue you have millions of taste “buds” and each taste bud contains between fifty and one hundred taste cells. The SGL1 receptors on your sweet taste cells also transmit the sweet flavor when sodium is present. These cells were important during our evolution to tell if something was bitter and could kill you or sweet and full of carbohydrates.