My family is all from Hamburg Germany. (Guten Tag Tuggy. Hoffentlich lesen Sie dies!) I am first generation here. Growing up I remember my grandmother and all of my great aunts always complaining that American desserts were salty and not like what they were used to. They all baked sweet things without salt.

So this question is for the non-Americans and particularly the Europeans on here. Do you use salt when you bake cakes and make icings? I've wondered about this for a long time. Is using salt an American thing, or is not using salt just something peculiar to my family?(It wouldn't be the only peculiar thing! LOL)

Thanks for your input in advance.

I'm not non-American or European, but I'd like to share my point of view on this....lol
Not sure if it's strictly an American thing or not, but I do know that it makes a difference. Now, my cakes and frostings & other sweets I make are not "salty", in fact, you can't even taste that there's ANY salt in them....I don't use it for the flavor/taste of the salt itself....I think that I & many others use it to enhance the sweet things we're making. That's the whole point of using salt anyway...not to make something taste salty. Salt is not actually a spice or seasoning, technically. It's really just meant to be used as an enhancer, whether the food be sweet or savory. And I think there's some property to it that aides in the rising or some other type of result in baking.

But American food maufacturers are notorious for using a lot of added sodium (salt) in the packaged products that we use. I'm sure this is true for cake mixes, frostings and the like that you find on the store shelves. That's part of why I try to cook most of what my family eats from scratch. All the sodium in those pkgd products is just unecessary and if I can avoid it I do.

Thanks for letting me share........

I'll be honest.. I don't use salt in any of my baked goods .. It has nothing to do with culture but it's more of a personal preference.
Salt ,yes, it enhances the flavor of the baked goods,but in my opinion the other stuff that goes into the made from scratch cakes or cookies already have some sodium added I don't feel the need to add anymore. But that's just me.
Each of us has special techniques that work for us and as the old slogan goes" If it Ain't broke,don't try to fix it."

Hi SquirrellyCakes and JennT and LemonLyme,

Thanks for your thoughtful answers. I have answers for you, in turn.

Squirrellycakes, I never saw kosher salt until after I was married. It is usaully used for making meat kosher and now-a-days the butcher does that for us. (Actually, by the time they arrived in the US, neither my mother nor my grandmother kept kosher. My husband and I made a decision to do that when our first son was born.) Kosher salt is used by gourmet cooks these days, but no one I know uses it routinely so I don't think it is the answer to this. It's a great hypothesis though. By the way, there isn't anything intrinsically not-kosher about regular salt. The kosher salt is just called that becasue of its association with making meat kosher (Which, incidentally has nothing to do with blessings or Rabbis.)

JennT, I know that everyone says salt just perks up the taste of sweet things. But to me, it is perceived as something that doesn't belong. I do seem to taste it. I know I'm in the minority here and I keep thinking I ought to try using it, but it is hard for me, especially because so many people are on low-salt diets and I think of it as unhealthy.

I do know that yeast is affected by salt. If you leave the salt out of bread dough, it rises faster. I usually do use salt when I make bread, though I often use less than a recipe calls for. Rose Levy Berenbaum says salt is only for taste in cake. She does highly recommend using it, though.

LemonLyme, I definitely agree with you. We are very much in the minority, though.

I don't use salt in my icings, but if a cake recipe calls for it, I will use it. However, I only used what is called for. My husband is 'salt sensative', so I learned to cook without it. Although lately I have to admit that I can taste salt more and more as I get older.

Debbi

Hi all,

I'm from The Netherlands, and i must say i don't use any salt in my cakes or my icings.

If i do make a cake with a salted butter i don't add extra salt even if the recipe calls for it.

And i must say the dutch are know for their marzipan on their cakes and stuff, and december i made a cake with a baker for a christmas cake and he added no extra salt either.

well this is my input on this subject, as this is as much as i know from the dutch baking.

Hi,

I am American, but I've been in Spain nearly 20 years and I don't remember seeing any cake recipes with salt in them. They do sell salted and unsalted butter here, too. And the DO heavily salt things otherwise, so it is not like they are trying to be low-salt or anything!

Andrea

I've been using "kosher" salt for so long that I didn't even think to mention it!! lol Maybe that's why the salt flavor isn't present when I use it in baked goods because I do only use a slight pinch. The flavor of the kosher compared to regular table salt is a whole lot milder and more palatable, to me. And when using it to cook savory foods, I've noticed it takes less to bring out the other flavors in the dish and doesn't leave that "salty" taste in my mouth. Just my experience....

Off to catch some red snapper and king mackerel and maybe even a shark out in the Gulf of Mexico.....You ladies have a wonderful day!!!

Jenn

Hi itsacake,

thank you for greetings and best wishes to your family.

Nearly every recipes in the magazines or baking books uses salt. Maybe in the earlyer days they didn´t use salt due to the high prices???

One of my teachers in pastry-school told us to use a pinch (around 4 gramms) of salt in everything sweet and the same amout of sugar in everything "salty" like bread, quiches etc, just to round up the taste of it.

I can´t say anything to the difference of the salt used, but couldn´t find a difference when eating something in the US (I only can say that I haven´t eaten something too salty and every thing was quite too good )

I think, too, that if you really don't use salt in your cooking, etc, you can REALLY taste it in anything that it IS in, ie. cakes, cookies, etc.

My family (we are Finnish-American) NEVER used salt in any baked goods. I was making a chocolate cake that called for salt and I added it (new recipe so I didn't want to screw it up), my mom and I could TOTALLY taste the flavor. I think it is just a matter of what your taste buds are "used" to getting, so if it something different, then they will really pick up on it.

Now--that being said, I do used salted-butter in my icings. However, another thing I have recently learned. I was using butter (salted) from Costco. Last week, I ran out (if you can believe that!!) of butter, so I just ran up to the grocery and got some Land-O-Lakes (also salted). However, the difference in the salt content of the two has made me reconsider using the salted Costco butter. The Costco is SOOOOO much more saltier tasting.

I used to follow the rule on only un-salted butter because 1. It's fresher because it does not have as long a shelf-life as it's salted counterpart and 2. because I wanted to be the one to add salt to whatever I was cooking.

However, when I started doing more and more cakes, it was much more cost-effective to go with the salted (cheaper) from Costco. Now--I'm really rethinking that. I'm going to have to see how much more it would cost per cake and adjust my pricing matrix. Since I use a LOT of butter in my cakes--it will definately have an effect on the final food costs.

Lisa

Itsacake,
I must remember to check out the latest Kosher salt, my brother-in-law picked up. There was some information on the package, I should have paid more attention to it, haha! But it seems to me it was extracted differently also. Interstingly, my brother-in-law had one parent of Jewish heritage and part of his mother's side were strict Orthdodox while the others were not. So his mother baked and cooked both Orthodox and not, boy was she a wonderful cook!
I think if people do not have salt in their diet, they are very sensitive to the addition of salt. So that is likely why people that don't normally use it would notice even minute amounts in baked goods and such.
Very interesting topic, isn't it?
Hugs Squirrelly Cakes

Isn't it funny how our taste buds seem to have minds of their own?? lol I hadn't even thought about this aspect of the "salt topic" until someone else mentioned it. I grew up with grandparents & parents who always used table salt, the idodized kind like Morton's brand, in all of their cooking. Now that I'm grown and a mother myself, and the cook as it may - I've realized that they must have cooked with LOTS of salt because if it's not there, or if something needs more salt (such as savory foods) I definitely notice it. But over the past few years I have drastically cut back the use of idodized table salt in my cooking and use the kosher salt now. It takes less to achieve its purpose and doesn't leave my mouth thirsty! lol Well - as long as you don't accidentally use too much of it...did that once and WHOA! But used sparingly I think it's so much better to cook with than table salt....JMO

Thought this might be interesting for folks to see.
Incidentally if anyone suffers from kidney failure, the use of salt in the diet is extremely risky. I had my mother with me until she passed away and she had to be on a salt-free diet, not an easy thing believe me! Salt is added to so many things, it is almost impossible to find unsalted products unless you make your own.
Anyway, the explanation for the iodization of salt follows. It also explains why salt is added to so many things, in addition to the preservative quality and taste enhancing issues.

In 1924 Morton became the first company to produce iodized salt for the table in order to reduce the incidence of simple goiter. Dextrose is added to stabilize the iodide. Iodine is vital to the proper functioning of the thyroid gland and the prevention of goiter. Actually, the amount of dextrose in salt is so small that it is dietetically insignificant. Morton® Iodized Table Salt contains 0.04 percent dextrose or 40 milligrams per 100 grams of salt. Morton® Plain Table Salt contains neither iodine nor dextrose. All Morton Salt products containing potassium iodide are so labeled.

Squirrellycakes: I bet you know the answer to this, or can find it....hehehe.....What is it, then, that makes the Morton's (or other brand or even generic) "table" salt taste so strong or so "salty" compared to kosher or large crystal salts? Even sea salt isn't as strong to me as table salt is....

Jenn t,
There is a lot of debate on this.
Generally sea salt and some Kosher salts, are not as refined as the regular table salts we use, so it is thought that the presence of other minerals naturally occuring, make the salt less salty tasting.
Kosher salt is larger particled so if you measure it out in tablespoons or cups and such, you are actually using less salt because of the irregularity of the salt crystals taking up more space and therefore you are using less salt. So actually you should measure this type of salt by weight.
Perhaps the addition of the anti-clumping agents also have some effect on taste when it comes to regular table salt.
Interestingly if you sprinkle Kosher salt on hot food, you are likely to get a saltier taste because the particles while coarser are actually flat sided which means it will dissolve faster on say, a steak or such and so not seeing it, you may be more likely to add more. But most people use Kosher salt in cooking or preserving, not as a table salt.
Hugs Squirrelly Cakes

Thanks to all of you who answered this thread, especially Tuggy, llj68, isabelamerica, caduchi, and frulund. I guess whether you use salt in baked goods and icing depends not so much on where in Euorpe you may be from, but more on what you are used to, and it certainly doesn't seem that it is universal in Hamburg.

I will have to try using kosher salt. It seems like an interesting idea. It will certainly fit well into my kosher kitchen! (Though it will be weird to buy more salt to mostly not use it....)

By the way, isabelamerica, I was in Spain for a short time once, and I did notice everything seemed even more heavily salted than here.

Thanks again to all!

I asked my mom (8th generation born in Hamburg) tonight about this and she can´t remember any cake without salt in her childhood (her grandma run a bar where you could eat). My father than started singing a traditional children song about cake baking where all incrediant are named you should use: you need 7 things, eggs and salt, sugar and butter, milk and flour and safran(to make it yellow).

Dear Tuggy!

You don't know what you just did! This is sooooo amazing! When I read your post I got the shivers. Now that you wrote this, I can remember my Grandmother and my Father and my Mother singing this song with me. None of them are still living. I lost my dad just exactly two years ago this week, and you brought back beautiful memories. When I read your post, I remembered most of the song, I think.

Backe, Backe Kuchen
Der Baekker hat gerufen
Wer will schoene Kuchen backen,
Der muss haben sieben Sachen,
Eier und Salz, Zucker und Schmalz
Milch und Mehl, Safran macht den Kuchen gel"

Is that right?

Thank you sooooooo much!!!!! It does mean that it must just be my family that didn't use salt, but I'm so happy to be singing this again. I think I even remember my grandmother singing it with my elder son (who is now 25) when he was a baby, not long before she died.

My husband and younger son wish I would stop singing (and clapping), but I'm having a great time with this! I'll have to remember for when I have grandchildren one of these days!

Thanks again!

Oh, thinking about this makes me remember something else. My father was always looking for a recipe that only my Grandmother and her sisters made. Our family called it Butterkuchen and it was a filling of rosinen and sukade (I don't even know that word in English) in a very thin almost pie shell with a lot of butter (muerbeteig?). It had rosenwasser poured over it before it was baked and also when it was served. Oma and die Tanten always put colored sprinkles on it as well. I remember eating it as a child, and tried to produce it several times, but Daddy always said I didn't quite have it right. It definitely didn't have any yeast, and all the recipes I've ever seen for Butterkuchen have yeast. Have you heard of anything like this? When we were in Hamburg in 2000 (a beautiful city!!!) we asked everyone we could think of and no one knew what we were talking about...

Do you ever go to Hagenbacks Tierpark? I loved it there--especially the elephants! Also Planten un Blomen and the foudntains were very wonderful. Maybe one of these days we'll be able to go back.

Thanks again for very terrific memories!