I forgot to add salt to a scratch white cake recipe...

Has anyone ever done this before? Think it will be ok?

If it comes out anything like the cookies to which I forgot to add salt, you will want to re-bake. Very bland.

I never add salt and nobody has ever noticed a difference in my family.

i don't usually bother adding salt to my cakes either and they have tasted fine and if I do it's only a pinch

Edited to say: Some cake recipes hardly use any salt anyway so if you left it out it is not going to change the taste that much. And yes if i feel that it is going to be really important in making other particular things i'll put it in

Salt can bring out the flavors in desserts (makes ______ taste more like itself)
It can also be used to temper sweetness or play with the salty/sweet element like a salted caramel. Salt can be a great asset to a recipe.

That being said, I've seen recipes with & recipes without. I can tell when I've forgotten salt in a recipe I'm used to, but wouldn't be able to tell the difference if I'd never tried it before. I wouldn't present it to a chef, but your average Joe probably won't know.

I have heard some say they wouldn't put salt in their cakes because they wouldn't put it on them. They're a lot of things that go in cakes I wouldn't put on top...eggs, flour, baking soda.

I've omitted salt from every dessert recipe for over 30 years. It started when my first husband had high blood pressure and we had to cut salt in everyway we could. Even just 1/4 tsp in a batch of cookies would help.

Hasn't hurt the taste of anything I make.

As it was already said before: Salt in cakes is there to either bring the taste of spices or whatever better out, or to cut the sweetness. If you are beating egg whites, it is there to cut grease.
In this case, I would say "normal" people won't taste the difference.

But as your question goes: How important IS salt? I have to remember an famous Czech film "Once upon a time there was a King" where the main idea was "salt above gold". As the film was released in 1955 and is still one of the "Christmas films" and the "let watch the TV tonight film" even for adults, you can understand how ingrained is the importance of salt here...

Don't forget there was probably salt in your butter, unless you deliberately use unsalted.


Then again, that may not be an option there. We have salted or unsalted butter here. I'm quessing it would be the same there?

I'll jump on the "salt is really important" bandwagon. Salt is really, really, really, really important to the taste of baked goods. It enhances and deepens flavor, and it balances sweetness. If I were out of salt, I would make a special trip to the store to get it before I started any food project.

Here's a fun article about salt:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4128/is_200411/ai_n9464947/

If a recipe calls for salt I just add a pinch (or not!!) because of the salt in the butter. Butter is salted mainly to act as a preservative, unsalted butter is too bland plus it's more expensive.

This is very interesting... I hope you don't mind me adding another question to this post... What about using "salted butter" VS "unsalted butter"? I'm assuming that is also important? Unsalted butter is hard to find around here and often very expensive... but if it makes that much of a difference, I do want my end result to be "perfect"...

The cake will be fine... you haven't rendered it inedible. But, for me, salt is like oxygen... I don't make ANYTHING without it... ever (even if a recipe doesn't call for it, it always gets a little pinch from me). Again, not that recipes become inedible without the salt, but with it, well it takes the flavors to another level. If you took away my salt you might as well cut off my right arm! lol.

I can definitely tell the difference when I leave the salt out of my recipes or if I use unsalted butter in my icing. To me it tastes way too bland.

The last time I made sugar cookies and forgot the salt I threw out the whole batch because they were just nasty to me. I think it's a matter of taste and what you are used to. But if it's for a customer, I'd throw in at least a pinch.

Salt is super important. I tried some in smbc--it's a no go for me in that stuff but try baking bread without it--or rather don't try baking bread without it--which of course we're not talking about bread but anyway--very important, vital ingredient.

I say salt is very important. There's a restaurant in town that goes to the trouble of homemade hot rolls and corn bread, but they are totally tasteless! If they would just add some salt!

Salt can also used in butter to mask an inferior product. With unsalted, you're always getting the true taste of the butter. I always buy unsalted & add salt to my recipe.