Baking Basics: Why is Salt Added to Sweet Recipes?

If you’ve never noticed, most sweet recipes call for at least a little bit of salt. Doesn’t that seem strange? I mean, I don’t want my cookies to be salty. Why are we supposed to add salt? 

Well, it turns out that salt enhances flavor in general. Instead of making things salty, a small amount of salt will make the recipe just taste more strongly.

In fact, rather than make a recipe taste salty, salt generally suppresses bitter and enhances sweet. Adding salt will keep the bitter ingredients, like dark chocolate, from delivering their bite and will allow the sweetness of another ingredient, like sugar, to deliver its sweetness. 

Scientists think it’s because the body needs salt to survive and before it was readily available, the body just registered recipes with salt as better tasting than those without to ensure the body got enough salt to survive.

Now, what about people with kidney or heart problems who are on low-sodium diets? Do they have to use salt in their recipes? Salt can always be left out of a recipe. However, that will definitely affect the taste. So, count on the recipe to be a bit more bland than you would otherwise expect. 

In fact, I’m a bit sensitive to salt and tend to reduce the amount called for when adapting a recipe. Most of my recipes call for as little salt as possible to still preserve flavor.

Watch us talk about this salty topic on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/LF2KyOmmj5M
Schaut zu wie wir über dieses salzige Thema auf YouTube reden hier: https://youtu.be/n9JOniPu-jQ