Bread: low salt recipes?

[Catz]

We got a new breadmaker for Christmas (Panasonic 255 -v.good so far) we've used it loads and the bread is great. DD is nearly 7 months so I want to give her some bread as finger food but ideally want to cut down on the salt. The standard recipe for the largest white loaf has 1 1/4 tsp of salt to 550g of flour. I'm just wondering how far I can reduce this. Obviously I can use herbs etc to add flavour but I think salt is also used to help the bread rise so don't want to cut it too far.

Does anyone have any idea of how far down you can cut the salt?

Many thanks

it's not exactly to help it rise - I think it actually retards the yeast action slightly and stops it over-rising [possibly talking bullshit emoticon!]

When I make my own bread I tend to cut the salt by about half and the sugar by about a quarter to help balance it. It depends on your exact recipe though, so you'll need to experiment a bit.

I don';t bother with salt every time when I bake if I'm putting in herbs/garlic whatever. I bet you wouldn't even notice the lack of salt.

I think the slat slows down or stops the action of the yeast in some recipes but is not essential. You'ld have to experi menyt to see what works for you. I generally make the 50% wholmeal loaf and yse roughly 2/3tsp salt. I also add lots of seeds (up to abou 80g) which enhances the flavour. Low salt bread tastes weird and tajkes some getting used to, but once you've spread salted butter on it you don't tend to notice the lack of salt.

I occasionally forget to add it at all. Haven't noticed any huge differences in how much/little it rises; taste is definitely diffferent.

This is much lower salt than bought bread, though. I wouldn't worry.

BTW the Panasonic's recipies are very robust. As I have found, you can mess them about quite substantially and still get a decent loaf.

Thanks for the replies and the food science lesson! All I know about breadmaking is from the leaflet that came with the breadmaker which says that salt 'strengthens the gluten' - will experiment with your ideas and see,