Has anyone tried this combo yet?

Sae Salt is the rage in CA and the store I work at during the school year makes this as candy and its pretty good!. I was thinking of cake like this

Chocolate cupcake with caramel filling, ganache frosting & Sea Salt

i love lovelove sweet and salty combos. i have a recipe for a cookie, where you add sea salt onto the top, and i swear it really stepped up the recipe! i've never had it on a cupcake though.

i've been eating the candy "turtles" for a long time, they're one of my favorite things. one day, i ate a few, was still hungry, so i went to the kitchen and grabbed some saltines...wow!! i guess i still had some of the caramel flavor in my mouth, and the saltiness of hte saltines really pumped up the flavor.

sounds totally weird, i know, but it's so good!

Dumb question, but how do you keep the salt from dissolving in a cake filling? I guess you place the salt within the chocolate??

The salt complements the caramel, not the chocolate per se. Always add a pinch of salt to the caramel, or add a bit of salted butter to the caramel.

I've seen small caramels or bon bons garnished with a bit of super coarse sea salt, like Fleur de Sel, but I wouldn't sprinkle salt on a big cupcake.

I wouldn't make a salted chocolate ganache, but salted caramel is a different story.

One of my cakes is brown sugar pecan cake, salted caramel, salted caramel buttercream, milk chocolate ganache and caramelized bananas. The salt makes the components sing.

I love fleur de sel with caramel (a natural pairing), but also with chocolate. I garnish my enrboed caramel mou with it, but i also put a small sprinkle on my brownies just before baking (and no it's doesn't dissolve in completely). It just that little extra touch that makes them PERFECT and people go mad for them (that's one recipe I can't share--the fleur de sel is about the only secret I can give up on those lol).

Paula,
It sounds delicious! Do you have a recipe? I'd love to try it!

Melanie Mc.

PS edited to say I found a great sounding recipe on epicurious. Instead of making truffles you could just whip it for a filling. I'll try it soon.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/CARAMEL-DARK-CHOCOLATE-TRUFFLES-WITH-FLEUR-DE-SEL-109085

That sounds absolutely heavenly!

I make a sea salt ice cream that's absolutely delicious, and now I'm wondering what would happen if I made chocolate sea salt ice cream...

I'll be darned if I don't learn something new everyday here.

Do you have a recipe for your salted caramel buttercream?
I'm going to make popcorn cupcakes and I'm thinking of making them in the flavors of caramel corn.

Sounds delish! In the book "BAKED", there is a similar recipe and they say it is one of their most famous cakes at their bakery. Most people love that salty sweet combination.

When reading the OP, I couldn't help but think of a snickers, that has a similar feel with the salted peanuts... and boy o boy do I love those! lol

Mmmm, chocolate & salt...yummy!!

When I was a kid and would visit my aunt's mom for the summer, she would always give me saltines with chocolate frosting on them. Yum!

Now, I love anything with chocolate & salt. I like to put Nutella on pretzles (those flat pretzles are awesome). At christmas we take a pretzle snap (the square ones), top it with a Hershey's Kiss, bake, then stick an M&M on the top. Yum! Sometimes I will just eat pretzles & M&Ms. h, and chocolate covered popcorn, that's good as long as it is salted.

Hmm, salt on the brownies, sounds like I need to try that!

My husband gave me a few truffles for St. Valentine's Day. One had caramel center topped with salt. It was ok, I didn't really care for the caramel, I thought it took away from the chocolate flavor!

We only use sea salt in our home. I make my own sea salted caramel, and that combo is delicious. It makes for an incredible buttercream variation.

(I don't use salt in my BC, I didn't like that addition at all.)

As for Snickers- check out this wicked thread
http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-607601-snickers.html

I have made these w/o the peanuts (Milky way) and I did add a lil extra salt to the caramel, so friggin' good!
Melvira's Caramel recipe is the best.

Yes, I made these for Valentine's Day. Caramel brownies with sea salt from the grinder over the top and then drizzled. They were really tasty and a huge hit. I think it's the sweet and salty thing that just nails it when you have the munchies.

I know the upscale bakeries are using larger salt, like that found on a pretzel and if I can get my hands on some, I will try that next.

jules1719:

any chance of getting that cake recipe? It sounds amazing!!

I make a salted caramel within my German Choc cake filling.

I make moulded chocolates with a sprinkle of sea salt on top. I buy sea salt flakes from Chef Johnny's products. He has many different varieties and I just love them.

Does it need to be a special kind or brand of sea salt? Do you use it as is or grind it up a bit?

Personally, I prefer the gourmet larger crystals. (Not SUPER huge, but moderate grains). I don't grind it at all. If I'm lucky, the crystals don't completely disolve in the sauce, so there's a bit of a texture going on. (I'm sure others will think I'm crazy, just my preference. )

I don't think the brand matters, but I usually use Maine sea salt, and buy it in bulk.

If you are using it in icing (I don't use salt in icing) I would opt for the smaller grain, as it might separate in the icing.

Thank you for the answer. I wasn't sure if the container just needed to say sea salt or if I needed to go to World Market and purchase some expensive brand.

If you all like the salty, caramel, chocolate combo try this super easy recipe......every age will go nuts over these they are always a hit.

Around here they're called Rumstick Crunch (don't know why)

Line a 15" cookie sheet with reynold's wrap and spray w/pam or any cooking spray.

Use 1 sleeve of "salted" Saltine crackers to line the bottom of the pan (it usually takes 35 crackers) set aside.

In a medium sauce pan melt 1cup (2 sticks) salted butter with 1 cup of dk brown sugar. Bring to a slow boil stirring constantly. Remove from heat and pour directly over crackers. Spread evenly to cover.

Bake at 350 for 10 to 15 minutes or until bubbling.

Remove from oven and immediately sprinkle a 12oz bag of semi sweet choc chips over top. Wait a few minutes and spread to coat the entire surface. Sprinkle with about 1cup of chopped pecans, walnuts or peanuts, whatever you have on hand is fine. Pecans are my favorite.

Refrigerate til firm and break into pieces as you would peanut brittle.

They taste like a salty, buttery, chocolate, nutty toffee crunch. My kids LOVE these, but they are like potato chips, you can't eat just one.
Enjoy!

P.S. Love Sea Salt too.......use it in all my cooking and on the table in a grinder!

dKelly~ (hello there ) Don't you love living near the ocean? I sure do!!! WARNING: mind wondering...

Those take me back to 1997~ someone made something similar for my MIL and they were incredible. Mini-turtle-ish saltine crackers.

I can't find vegan saltines, but my favorite was making my~
(brace yourselves) Saltine Pizzas. circa 1995...
I was trying to imitate "cracker crust". Sorry to digress, but your answer just threw me back into the past when I first met my husband and I was still in college... I used to make these all the time. The house reeked of parmesian cheese and soggy saltines... good times.

If only I had a Tardis... where is David Tennant when you need him most???