I Tried Adding Soy Sauce To My Chocolate Cake & Have Serious Thoughts
There are few desserts more decadent than a slice of chocolate cake. Each rich, bittersweet bite is more indulgent than any vanilla-based dessert can be (sorry, but it’s true). Part of why chocolate cake is so satisfying is the depth of flavor—and several recipes supplement the chocolate with more ingredients to amp up the nuance even more.
Our ultimate recipe uses a full cup of coffee to highlight the bitterness of the chocolate. Other recipes, like our St. Patrick’s Day-approved Guinness cake, rely on stout beer for the same reason. But there’s one unconventional ingredient that some bakers swear by: soy sauce.
If your first reaction is that of disgust, I don’t blame you. The salty, savory seasoning seems like an unwelcome addition to any dessert, not just chocolate cake. But users online claim that soy sauce accomplishes something similar to salt in desserts. I’ve always been taught that salt is like the “magnifying glass for flavor.” Aside from balancing out the sweetness in a dessert, it also emphasizes every other ingredient you use. It makes vanilla more vibrant, peanut butter more pronounced, and chocolate more…chocolatey.
But soy sauce has a lot more to offer than just salt. Because it’s made from fermented soy beans, the condiment has a high concentration of glutamates. This amino acid contributes to umami flavor, which makes food taste even more satisfying than it would with just salt. High glutamate foods include aged cheeses, mushrooms, and you guessed it, chocolate. But how does a chocolate cake taste when you amp up the glutamates to 100? I decided to find out.
Soy sauce isn’t typically used in dessert, so naturally, there aren’t a lot of recipes for chocolate cake that include it. But a journey down an online rabbit hole led me to a recipe from the now-defunct blog DaveBakes. His recipe omits salt in lieu of a whopping ¼ cup of soy sauce. I opted for reduced-sodium, because that’s what I already use at home. And frankly, I was scared of what a full-sodium soy sauce would do in this recipe.
That fear didn’t subside throughout the process of building this cake batter. DaveBakes’ recipe calls for stirring the soy sauce into the wet ingredients (in this case, sour cream). And I’m not going to lie: it looked pretty gross.
But I remained steadfast and baked the cake as written. And for four tablespoons of soy sauce, the final result was surprisingly subtle. The cake tasted rich, balanced, and not too sweet. You don’t taste the soy sauce itself, but you can definitely notice what it does to the dessert overall. There’s a roundness to each bite—every ingredient shines without overpowering the others. I wasn’t expecting it, but I cleared an entire slice without a second thought.
If you want to incorporate soy sauce into your desserts but don’t want to commit to large quantities, proponents of the ingredient suggest using it like you would vanilla extract. Just add a few teaspoons to your wet ingredients, then reap the savory benefits.
Would you try soy sauce in desserts? Let me know in the comments.
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