For the last couple of years I have seen pairings of salt and sweet in finer restaurants. At first I thought, you must be crazy, why would I want a salty dessert. I can assure you, they go well together. In fact, they go so well together you will be wondering why you didn’t think of this before. I find that the salt brings out flavors other than the sweetness in a particular dish, and it also takes away the shockingly sweet ways desserts can taste.
With that being said, let’s look at this book. Christie Matheson puts together a collection of recipes that are well written, along with beautiful photography. Want a book that has a picture of every recipe? You want this book.
I like her primer on salt, for after all there is more than table salt that we all see in salt shakers everywhere. These different salts really do taste differently, and have different applications. For example, Fleur de Sel is hand harvested salt from France that goes well with fish. The recipes include many wonderful basic recipes where the use of salt is fantastic. Salted caramels, are heavenly, in fact, I can hardly think of them without salt any longer. Chocolate chip cookies with a light dusting of sea salt along with semi sweet chocolate chips should have been done years ago. The Decadent Hot Chocolate, was decadent. A criticism of this book may be that none of these recipes are completely new, but rather this is a collection of good recipes with salt sprinkled in, but it is sprinkled in brilliantly. If you are looking for a new way to do desserts I would definitely consider picking up this book and trying this one out.
About Stephanie Manley