Salt in bread dough

I bake all the bread we eat in this house, and yet it's still a little hit or miss. So I signed up as a recipe tester for Peter Reinhart's forthcoming book on artisan baking. I'm right in the middle of the first test - obviously, I can't give you the recipe. Straight away, I'm thinking harder about exactly what I'm doing, and that's because I'm (for once) doing exactly what the recipe says.

It's one of those slow-ferment recipes, the sort you barely have to knead, the sort you can keep in the fridge for more or less instant bread all week. But when I found myself putting in about twice my normal quantity of salt, I started fretting. What does salt in bread dough DO - apart from make it taste better, and raise some people's blood pressure?

Dan Lepard is pragmatic: My view is that, for the majority of bread recipes, the salt is an integral part of the loaf, and that bread usually needs to be considered a sodium-rich foodstuff, almost like salt-cured fish. Salt is part of the taste and enhances the flavour of the grain. But we eat to live, or should do if we respect the body that carries us, and it is right and proper that we vary our diet according to what our needs are. Please do vary or omit the salt used in the recipes here. We are told that even a small reduction in our dietary sodium intake will benefit us, and many of our processed foods have a hidden sodium (salt) content where you wouldn't expect it to be - in breakfast cereals, for example. For children, two slices of bread can sometimes equal their recommended daily sodium requirement (which is surprisingly small). So use salt respectfully.

Now that seems to me to be sensible advice, especially coming from a master baker, and one who has travelled all over Europe to watch artisan bakers at work (resulting in The Handmade Loaf, a wonderful and practical book).

All the same, it didn't quite answer the question. Why do bakers use salt? After all, we know it's not strictly necessary from the traditional Tuscan saltless loaf. What effect does the salt have? Most baking books are silent on this, they just exhort you to go out and buy the most expensive salt you can find (those books are going into the charity shop box). Eric Treuille and Ursula Ferrigno hint at what's going on in their Dorling Kindersley illustrated-as-if-for-a-child book Bread:

Salt is used in most bread recipes to control the rate of fermentation and to give flavour. The presence of salt in a dough inhibits fermentation, which strengthens the developing gluten. This results in a bread with a stable crumb, a long shelf-life and more taste than breads without it.

I consulted Elizabeth David's English Bread and Yeast Cookery, and found a more thorough answer:

It is not only because it gives the necessary flavour, or rather corrects insipidity, that salt is so important to bread. It is also in the context of its action on the yeast and the dough during the fermentation or rising period, and for its ultimate effect on the baked loaf, particularly the crust, that salt has to be considered.

First, the flavour. Those early bakers started putting salt in their bread to improve its flavour, then slowly began to appreciate, through observation, that varying amounts of salt made the dough behave differently and affected the quality as well as the taste of the loaves.

So although the amount of salt we put in our bread should, ultimately, depend on taste, individual or collective, practical application of this theory is not so straightforward a matter.

Quite apart from the widely differing salt-toleration, or salt requirements, of each individual, the strength of the ultimate salt flavour in any batch of bread will depend to some extent on the flour used - new flour absorbs more than old flour - on the kind of dough made and on the length of time it is left to ferment.

Broadly speaking, the shorter the rising time the more yeast and less salt are needed, but this is an over-simplification because proportions of both are determined by the volume of dough concerned. The larger the batch, the relatively smaller the proportion of yeast, so the balance of salt must be adjusted, at any rate in theory, to the time calculated for the fermenting or rising of the dough.

I say in theory because when it comes down to a small batch of home-baked bread, it really is not necessary to make elaborate calculations. A few experiments will surely show what is the proper quantity of all the ingredients, their relation to rising times, and to the ultimate flavour and texture of the bread. When it comes to finding out what went wrong with a loaf or a batch of bread, made apparently in every respect identically with your last successful one, then is the moment to try to remember whether perhaps your salt was carelessly measured, or if you guessed at the quantity instead of weighing it as usual.

...To me, bread with a very low salt content is virtually uneatable, and in my calculations for the rising time of the dough the extra salt I put in is allowed for. It is worth remembering that a proper proportion of salt helps the retention of moisture in the baked loaf, and that too much makes for a hard crust.

She goes on to write about the problems in re-scaling quantities of salt and yeast when altering recipes. And she throws light on the recipe I'm currently testing:

For an overnight or eight-hour rising the yeast can again be decreased without reducing the salt content It would be the high proportion of salt which would slow up the action of the yeast, and prevent the dough over-fermenting or developing a sour taste The very short rising and proving times, often as little as 40 minutes all told, sometimes given on flour-packet recipes, can only be explained by the minimal salt content of the dough.

And, for the record, she used Cheshire rock salt, bought in 6lb jars.

Links to related posts

Yeast starter for bread - and the bread make your own sourdough starter

No-knead bread the famous NY Times recipe
Speeded-up no-knead bread and a different take on it

Yoghurt bread fabulous, easy, TRY IT
Quick oat loaf
Spelt bread - it's getting easier to buy this highly-flavoured flour

Fresh corn bread - now is the perfect autumnal moment for this
Late summer hearth bread - another perfect autumn bread, this one with grapes

Anti-oxidant tea bread - I made this for my husband for a pre-surgery boost - delicious, too!

Yeast conversion - fresh/dried/quick


Things to do with stale or leftover bread

Panzanilla
Herb stuffing for roast chicken
Grilled trout with rosemary stuffing
Baked scallops
Anchovy toasts

Links to the best blogging bakers I know

Tanna at My Kitchen in Half Cups
A Year in Bread
Susan at Farmgirl Fare

this list is not exhaustive, there are dozens of wonderful blogging bakers