Sweet and Salty Desserts

By Food & Wine
Updated January 11, 2017
Hit all your tastebuds with these incredible sweet and salty desserts, from chocolate chip cookies with red miso buttercream to salted caramel pie to bacon-bourbon brownies.
Start Slideshow

1 of 17

Milk-Chocolate Tart with Pretzel Crust

Credit: © Con Poulos
Go to Recipe

This dessert from pastry chef Colleen Grapes, a tribute to the chocolate-covered pretzel, hits just the right salty-sweet note. Grapes mixes crushed pretzels with flour, butter, sugar and egg to make a crunchy crust, pours in a luxurious milk-chocolate filling, then sprinkles on more crushed pretzels as a garnish.

Advertisement
Advertisement

2 of 17

Salted-Caramel Squares

Credit: © Lucy Schaeffer
Go to Recipe

Here, tender caramel tops a dense, buttery crust in Zoe Nathan's delicious salty-sweet treats.

3 of 17

Chocolate-Chip Cookies with Red Miso Buttercream

Chef Erik Bruner-Yang adds umami to the classic sugar-salt combination by spreading these crisp-chewy chocolate-chip cookies with a rich, sweet-savory miso buttercream that’s flecked with minced lemon verbena.

Advertisement

4 of 17

Ice Cream Bonbons

Credit: © Tina Rupp
Go to Recipe

Kendra Baker uses caramel ice cream in her bonbons, which have a silky chocolate shell and flaky sea salt on top.

5 of 17

Salted Caramel Pie

Credit: Dana Gallagher
Go to Recipe

This supereasy pie is a caramel lovers' dream. The filling is sweetened condensed milk sprinkled lightly with sea salt and baked until thick and gooey, then chilled in a simple graham cracker crust.

6 of 17

Salted Fudge Brownies

Credit: © Tina Rupp
Go to Recipe

Kate Krader has been making these fudgy, sweet-salty brownies since she was 10 years old. As a kid she used regular table salt; now she recommends a flaky sea salt like Maldon, because the flavor is less harsh and it melts so nicely into the batter, accentuating the chocolaty sweetness.

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

7 of 17

Vanilla Bean Cake with Salted Caramel Sauce

Go to Recipe

"I tried making this as an upside-down cake, which was a disaster, but then I realized I could just pour the caramel on top," Valerie Gordon says.

8 of 17

Salted Shortbread Cookies

Credit: © John Kernick
Go to Recipe

9 of 17

Bacon-Bourbon Brownies with Pecans

Credit: © Fredrika Stjärne
Go to Recipe

Kat Kinsman tops her rich brownies with bacon and pecans. To enhance the smoky flavor, she mixes some of the bacon fat into the batter.

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

10 of 17

Chocolate Pots de Crème with Maple Caramel and Salt

Go to Recipe

Pastry chef Michael Laiskonis serves this milk-chocolaty dessert in an eggshell with caramel foam; it's known as "the egg." It's just as good in ramekins, topped with a simple caramel sauce blended with maple syrup.

11 of 17

Chocolate Wafers with Ginger, Fennel and Sea Salt

Go to Recipe

Dark chocolate with a high cacao content is lower in sugar and higher in antioxidants than milk chocolate. For this ingenious snack, Grace Parisi coats wafer-thin crispbreads in dark chocolate so that they seem like candy bars studded with flaky Maldon sea salt, chewy crystallized ginger and candied fennel seeds.

12 of 17

Cranberry-Pecan Bread Pudding with Bacon

Go to Recipe

A good loaf of cranberry-nut bread from a bakery has so much flavor that there's no need to trick it up with lots of ingredients. As the pudding bakes, the bread becomes almost custardlike, with a crispy brown top.

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

13 of 17

Dulce de Leche, Coconut and Chocolate Chip Magic Bars

Credit: © Fredrika Stjärne
Go to Recipe

This is Grace Parisi's sophisticated version of magic bars, that chocolate-coconut bake-sale favorite. Browning the butter gives the crust a nutty flavor; cooking it in a metal baking dish makes it extra crisp. In a touch inspired by pastry chefs' favorite new ingredient, Grace adds bacon to the filling.

14 of 17

Butterscotch Pots de Crème with Caramel Sauce

Go to Recipe

"I have a lot of guys from Oaxaca in my kitchen, and they put salt on everything," says Travis Lett. "When I saw one of them add salt to this dessert, I thought, Hey, that's a great idea."

15 of 17

Molten Chocolate Cake with Caramel Filling

Credit: © James Baigrie
Go to Recipe

More decadent than molten chocolate cake: one filled with warm caramel, reveals F&W's Grace Parisi.

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

16 of 17

Chocolate-Cayenne Cocktail Cookies

Credit: © Quentin Bacon
Go to Recipe

Dorie Greenspan loves using Valrhona cocoa to make these spicy, unexpectedly tender cookies, flecked with flaky Maldon salt. "It's so rich and dark," she says.

17 of 17

Chocolate-Almond Saltine Toffee

Go to Recipe

Pastry chef Nicole Plue was intrigued by a recipe she discovered for matzo covered in toffee and chocolate. But she knew she could improve it by using crackers instead of matzo for a hit of salt. Now the saltines, slathered with buttery toffee and bittersweet chocolate, are a favorite on her petit four tray.

Replay gallery

Share the Gallery

Up Next

By Food & Wine