There's a reason salted sweets are beloved by pastry chefs: They're delicious. Here's how to bring the decade's most enduring dessert trend home.
CRYSTAL CLEAR: KNOW YOUR SALTS
Whatever your dessert needs, a sprinkle of one of these will get the job done—just don't use table salt!
KOSHER SALT: These crystals dissolve quickly and evenly in cookie doughs, tart and pie crusts, and caramels, introducing salt to ingredients without clobbering them.
FLAKY SEA SALT: Preferred for their light, crunchy texture and delicate pyramid-shaped flakes, sea salts like Maldon provide the ideal finishing touch on cookies, ice cream, and apple pie.
COARSE SEA SALTS: These salts (e.g. sel gris and fleur de sel) work with assertive flavors and textures. like Maldon, their grains are crunchy, but they don't dissolve as quickly.
Lemon-Honey Tart with Salted Shortbread Crust
"Salt makes citrus fresher and spices more fragrant, and when added to tart dough or shortbread, it adds complexity to the entire dish." —Belinda Leong, pastry chef, B. Patisserie, San Francisco
Salted Pistachio Brittle
"Double the salt in any classic dessert recipe. You almost can't lose if you do that. It becomes a totally different animal." —Brooke Headley, pastry chef, Del Posto, NYC
Salty Chocolate Chunk Cookies
"The main thing to remember is that salt is a flavor enhancer, not a flavor replacer." —Claudia Fleming, pastry chef, The North Fork Table & Inn, Southold, NY
Almond Bread Pudding with Salted Caramel Sauce
"I wouldn't overlook the role of nostalgia in how we might perceive a sweet-salty mashup. Think maple syrup with smoky and salty bacon." —Michael Laiskonis, creative director, The Institute of Culinary Education, NYC