Best salts for desserts

A flaky salt like Maldon, pressed onto the dough just before baking or onto the cookies the moment they leave the oven. The crystals stay intact and give little bursts of salinity against the sweet. Fine table salt dissolves in and just makes the whole cookie taste salty.

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Jacobsen Pure Flake. Scatter it across the dimpled, oiled dough just before it bakes, so the broad flakes set into the crust and stay crisp through the heat. Its thin Oregon flake gives the bright, glassy crunch focaccia is famous for. Don't mix it into the dough, where it just dissolves and you lose the crackle.

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Persian blue salt. One of the rarest salts on earth, its pale-blue sylvinite crystals look extraordinary pressed into dark ganache, and the round salinity with a quiet umami close lifts chocolate without a harsh spike. Press a single small crystal into each truffle as it sets, off any heat, so the blue and the crystal survive.

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Fleur de sel de Guérande, the original. Stir a little into the warm caramel for round background salinity, then sprinkle a few crystals on top before it sets for the crunch. Its slow-melting, faintly violet salinity is gentler than Maldon's sharp shatter, which suits caramel's soft sweetness.

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Jacobsen Pure Flake. Scatter a few thin flakes across the batter just before baking, or onto the warm tray fresh from the oven, so they sit proud and crunchy against the fudge. The bright, clean brine cuts the dark-chocolate richness without tasting bitter. Don't beat salt into the batter, where it only mutes the sweetness evenly.

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Cornish Sea Salt. Crush a little fine flake into the dry flour to season the crumb, then scatter a few crystals over the egg-washed tops before baking so they set into the crust. The brisk Atlantic brine lifts cheese-and-chive scones cleanly. Don't rely only on the top: an unsalted crumb tastes flat however good the finish.

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Fleur de sel de Guérande. Salted-butter caramel is a French invention, and Guérande is the salt it was built on. Its moist crystals melt slowly into the soft caramel, giving bursts of salinity rather than an even saltiness. Stir most in and scatter a pinch on top so each bite finds a crystal.

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Fleur de sel de Guérande. Salt cuts dark chocolate's bitterness and lifts its fruit, and fleur de sel does it gently, with moist crystals that pop softly against the snap. Press a few crystals into melted or tempered chocolate before it sets, or scatter them over squares just before serving.

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Hawaiian red alaea salt. Its soft, round saltiness with an iron-mineral, red-earth edge cuts the caramelized sugar of grilled pineapple and ties it back to the islands. The burnt-orange crystals look right on the charred gold rings. Sprinkle it on after the grill, off the heat, so the crunch survives and the clay note stays clean.

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Noirmoutier sea salt. Dissolve it in the dough water so it disperses evenly, since salt controls fermentation and crust as much as flavor. Its clean, frank salinity seasons the crumb without bitterness. There is no point in a flaky finishing salt here; it dissolves into the dough and the crunch is lost.

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