mix, mix…stir, stir

The popularity of salt caramels may have been what really launched the salt/sweet combo into the mainstream. I haven’t met a single person that doesn’t love salt caramels. Salt and caramel, salt and chocolate, salt and creamy things; it’s all good. These World Peace Cookies are yet more proof that salt and sweet are a perfect match.

photo by David Peterman

I generally add a pinch of salt to dessert items if the recipe doesn’t call for it. I am a firm believer that a little salt, though not identifiable on its own, enhances the overall flavors of a dessert. Recently I discovered the delightful taste sensation of sprinkling a little salt on chocolate chip cookies just before they go in the oven, and now it’s the only way I make chocolate chip cookies. Already a fan of salt with sweet and salt with cookies, I was thrilled to learn that the cookies for this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie baking project highlight salt as a key flavor component playing against the flavors of dark cocoa and rich butter. It’s a natural match just like salted caramels.

The World Peace Cookies are a sablé-style cookie, much like a shortbread or butter cookie. This is the second sablé cookie we have made in this group and I think I have finally gotten the hang of the pronunciation, SAH-blay.  These cookies are tender and crumbly, not too sweet, and very difficult to stop eating. There is only ½ teaspoon of salt in the recipe, but it is enough to make them stunningly delicious. Each bite finishes with a beautiful salty note that is nicely countered by the sugar, cocoa, and butter. Eating one makes me want one more, and then the justification that they are small kicks in so I decide to have another before I put them away, well, this went on until they were gone. Irresistibly delicious is how I would sum up this recipe. I have heard other Tuesday with Dorie bakers rave about this recipe, and now I understand.

Jessica of Cookbook Habit gets credit for selecting this week’s baking project from Dorie Greenspan’s  book, Baking: From My Home to Yours. This recipe alone is enough to justify making a place in your kitchen for this book.  If you want to see for yourself, Jessica has posted the World Peach Cookies recipe on her blog.

Salt is what makes these cookies so spectacular, and with all the different specialty salts available, playing with different flavors and textures can add a spectacular element to all kinds of dishes. In general, the fancy flake and flavored salts are best utilized as finishing salts added just before serving a dish; if these specialty salts are used for general seasoning during cooking, the unique texture and flavor characteristics get lost.

photo by David Peterman

With the availability of affordable sea salts and kosher salt, table salt is losing popularity in kitchens. Table salt is very dense making it slow to dissolve, it also contains a variety of additives that can create a harsh and sometimes metallic taste as well as cloud brines. Kosher salt is a coarse flake salt that doesn’t contain the additives found in table salt and is readily available in grocery stores making it extremely popular to cook with. The coarse texture also makes it very easy to sprinkle evenly over food. Sea salt is harvested from evaporation fields and either washed of surface impurities to create a very uniform size and appearance or left unrefined retaining traces of minerals and sediments often giving the salt a gray cast. For general cooking I use kosher salt, but for baking I use a finer grain sea salt for a more accurate measurement. Pictured above are examples of sea salt, kosher salt, and gray salt.

One of the most famous salts is Fleur de sel, a flake salt harvested along France’s Brittany coast. Fleur de sel is harvested from the top crust that forms on evaporation ponds and is very light and delicate, and generally reserved for finishing delicate dishes. The salt harvested from the bottom of these ponds is a coarser texture and heavier in flavor because it contains more minerals. This is gray salt, or sel gris, and bold enough to cook with rather than reserve for finishing.

photo by David Peterman

Some flake salts, like the famous Maldon sea salt from England, are hollow-pyramid crystals that add an amazing crunch to food.  Balinese Pyramid salt is pictured above to illustrate this interesting crystallin structure. The evaporation process used in harvesting sea salt determines the shapes of crystals.

photo by David Peterman

Murray River Pink Flake Salt from Australia is my favorite choice for garnishing cookies and other baked goods. It is beautifully light with a delicate clean flavor. Black flake salt makes a dramatic garnish for crackers,  focaccia breads, and even butter. The flake structure is very thin, so though it looks like a big piece of salt, it does not deliver an overwhelming salty flavor. Hawaiian red alaea salt is made by adding volcanic clay to sea salt to create a beautiful deep muted red hued salt with a nice earthy flavor and gorgeous color.

photo by David Peterman

Smoked salts are worth experimenting with as well. My favorite use of alderwood smoked salt is in making caramels.  Smoked salts are really strong and a little goes a long way, but it is also the quickest way to add a nice complex flavor to a dish. When I am in a rush and just want to toss some chicken on the grill, a sprinkle of smoked salt and some black pepper adds great flavor in seconds.  I have also tossed a pinch in slow cooked oatmeal to make it taste like it was cooked over a campfire.

Salts can add very distinct characteristics to dishes and are great fun to experiment with. This is barely a sampling of the salts available on the market, so check out specialty spice shops, a favorite activity of mine when I visit different cities, specialty kitchen stores, and gourmet groceries to find all kinds of different salts.

Would you like to make your own Himalayan pink salt celler? See my very first blog post for instructions.

phot by David Peterman

All photos by David Peterman unless otherwise noted

Tags: Cookies, Salt, Tuesdays with Dorie

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009 at 5:33 pm and is filed under Spice Spotlight, Tuesdays with Dorie. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.