JimLane wrote:

> Bob Pastorio wrote:
>
>> JimLane wrote:
>>>
>>> You did a great job of covering any salt flavor with your filling.
>>> Why did you not test them plain, cake to cake no extras?
>>
>> It's the finished products that we were comparing. But years of
>> critical measuring and tasting the results says that it's a fruitless
>> search at these quantities. I knew it wouldn't make any difference
>> from experience.
>>
>> But can anyone seriously believe that an additional 1/12 of a teaspoon
>> of salt will show up as even a remote flavor determinant in the 9-inch
>> cake described above? I daresay that folks measuring with spoons will
>> make an error within that range while trying hard to be accurate. And
>> given that kitchen measures are in the "close enough" category, it's
>> hard to imagine that a variation this small wouldn't fall invisibly in
>> the cracks.
>>
>> The pile of salt that makes up 0.45 grams is a small pinch. It simply
>> disappears into the other flavors, even without the filling and glaze.
>> That ratio of additional salt to the volume of the whole cake is way
>> more subtle than anybody I know can pick up.
>
> Hmmm, I see only your opinion.

I'm desperately sorry I didn't convene a focus group to satisfy your
urgent need for FACTS to demonstrate that 0.45 grams of salt is a tiny
bit. And that a tiny bit of salt in more than a pound of other
ingredients wouldn't make a difference. I'm desolated that you haven't
had your yearnings for absolute 10-decimal-place accuracy satisfied.

Here's a blast for you: kitchen measurements are *never* exact,
particularly volumetric ones. The equipment we work with in normal
kitchens isn't designed to be lab-accurate. Teaspoons and tablespoons
of powders, leveled or not, will be off the exact measure by up to 10%
depending on compaction. A tablespoon of salt of one size crystal
won't hold the same weight of salt of a different crystal size.
Recipes are written and tested by professionals with that
understanding in mind. Every effort is made to write them to
relatively exact measure, but cooking is a resilient science and
forgives minor departures. A bit more or less of most ingredients
won't materially affect the dish. Like everybody's Aunt Minnie cooks
by the handful and it still works.

In this case, the "bit more" is of such a small absolute quantity that
it's irrelevant and below any threshold of taste.

> Not a fact anywhere in sight.

Well, the measurements are factual because I did them and recorded
them for anyone who would wish to check. I mentioned that a dozen
people couldn't see any difference. Silly me, I assumed that you could
read some words on a screen and actually understand them. since I've
tested saline solutions, by taste, in researching brine strengths,
I've sampled concentrations down to 1 gram in a gallon of water
(couldn't taste salt) and up to 300 grams per gallon and had others
test them for subjective analyses for articles I wrote on brining and
for my radio program. And that's why I wrote above: "But years of
critical measuring and tasting the results says that it's a fruitless
search at these quantities. I knew it wouldn't make any difference
from experience." How would you have liked the "facts" to have been
determined and expressed? How many witnesses would it take for you to
accept the results? Just any witnesses or should they be somehow
qualified?

> You are
> assuming that because you MIGHT not be able to taste it in the bare
> cake, then no one else would either. That is arrogance. And stupidity.

What's arrogant and stupid is your insistence that I do *my*
experiment *your* way. Perhaps you failed to note in my earlier post
that a dozen people tasted the cakes and were asked about any
differences perceived. Most of them tasted snippets of plain cake
after hearing the question from my daughter. Nobody tasted anything
different between the cakes. Period. My 12-year-old showed better
comprehension of what was happening than you do. We weren't trying for
a Nobel prize, just an informal discussion around a diner table.

I'm assuming that since I've actually tested saline concentrations
from virtually nothing to very salty, I know where it begins to taste
different. And this ain't it.

See, Jim, I've been a foodservice professional since the 70's. Studied
in Europe and traveled the world rather widely. I've operated all
sorts of restaurants. I'm a professional recipe developer and a
consultant for designing commercial products, some of which are in
stores around the country. All formulated to extremely exact
measurements with very exact processing and handling to meet FDA
standards and commercial requirements.

I realize you didn't know this, but it doesn't much minimize the
silliness of your shitheaded note. The facts you crave include numbers
I provided that you seem unable to grasp or are too unskilled to
extrapolate from. I gave you a specific recipe to consider and assumed
that you could understand the significance of the facts of it. Could
grasp the orders of magnitude involved. Apparently not.

Your note disqualifies you from discussions where the actual product
isn't in front of you. Either you utterly lack the imagination to
extrapolate a finished result from a recipe or you lack the kitchen
competence to appreciate the very small, real-world amounts we've been
dealing with in this question. Either way, you're over your head.

I also notice that you didn't go test it to see if I was wrong. Just
be a spectator and fling the contents of your head out onto the field.
Go taste salt in a pint of water with 1/2 cup sugar in it. Start with
0.45 grams, 1/12 of a teaspoon, and see if you can taste it. Work your
way up to maybe 15 grams and see. Don't have a scale that accurate?
Ok, borrow mine.

And you can save your lame judgments for others who aren't light years
ahead of you. I'd guess that it would be a small crowd.

Pastorio