Salt, this stranger

Himalayan pink salt

Salt is one of the four ingredients in regular bread baking.
I would say it' s a key ingredient because it gives to doughs different properties.

We will see later which are the most known as well as the unknown ones.
But before of that, we could take a couple minutes to think about Salt.

The mineral which in the medieval times was so precious can be found of many different types: refined, unrefined, fine coarse, gross coarse, crystals or enriched, and so on...

The most common is the white salt either coming from mountain caves/ salted deserts or made by letting evaporate sea water with industrial or artisan methods.

In france (Normandy coast) they extract a grey salt which have less salty taste but great other qualities. The color come from seaweed and other minerals.

Always in France but in the south coast of Camargue, a very special salt is extracted: Le fleur de Sel
It has fine crystals (flowers) which are delicate in taste as well as texture and they dissolve faster in a water solution.

In the Himalayan region, a pink salt is produced. Usually unrefined, is harder but have a gentle taste. It' s a fossil salt and so is very pure.

From hawaii islands comes a black salt which have been naturally enriched by carbon from the vulcanic activity of those isles. Also less refined tend to be heavy in taste but is good for our gut.


However, in bread bakin, we dissolve salt into water and percentages are low (usually from 1,5% to 2,8%) therefore any difference in taste is not really noticed in the final product.
The only exception is iodium enriched salt, which tend to give a bitter note to the breads.
For this reason I can suggest to not use it.


The most obvious aspect of adding salt to the dough is for the taste. Salt gives to breads that well rounded taste which is impossible to obtain without this mineral.
But, there are other improvements that salt can give to a dough; More on the technological aspect:

1.It affects fermentation. Since the dawn of the cook, salt have been used to preserve aliments from bacterias and natural decomposition (which starts with a fermentation). Then it' s not surprising if salt can slow down fer,mentation in doughs too. Of course you need a lot of salt to compromise a fermentation, but it will be slowed down for sure.

2.It affects rheologycal properties of gluten and so of doughs. Salt help to bond proteins with water strenghtening bounds as well as giving rigidity to the gluten's structure.


I always look for unrefined salts for baking since they tend to be more natural as well as they dissolve in water less rapidly. Which kind I would use every time is just a matter of personal preference as well as disponibility at the moment.