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Some bakers opt for a single, long slash, whereas others prefer lots of tiny cuts that together form a beautiful, artistic design. Who hasn’t been drawn to a beautifully presented loaf of bread with its dramatic, surface ear or intricate pattern? It’s here where the baker can leave his/her individual touch on the final baked loaf.
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The second purpose of scoring bread is aesthetics… Some home bakers don’t mind these irregular openings, but scoring is the way to go if you want maximum height in a consistent and controlled manner. Without this step in the baking process, our loaf will burst open in unexpected areas. In other words, wherever you slash or make cuts in the dough will be the places where the dough is able to expand out. Bread bakers score dough to create these weak spots and direct the expansion of the loaf. Whether intentional or not, the weakest points in the dough surface will give way and burst open. Through the production of gasses, the dough is forced to spring up and push against the taut surface formed during the shaping and proofing stage. When baking bread, the intense heat of an oven causes the dough to rise rapidly by expediting the fermentation process. Why Do We Need to Control the Way Dough Expands in the Oven? To control the way the bread expands in the oven.The cuts or the scoring of the bread dough are made with two purposes in mind: Scoring bread describes cuts made to bread dough before the dough is placed in the oven and baked. You can get 10% off anything from Wire Monkey if you use this link to make your purchase! (I have more recommendations below, depending on what kind of scoring you like to do). NOTE: If you’re looking for a great tool to score your bread, my current favorite is the UFO lame by Wire Monkey. But firstly, do we score bread just to make it look good or is there a bigger purpose?
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The tips above will give you a great head start to scoring your bread dough successfully, but let’s take a deeper look into a few fundamental techniques to get you slashing like a master baker.
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WIRE MONKEY BREAD LAME PROFESSIONAL
It was also the most nerve-wracking part of the whole bread process, because if you get it wrong, you can’t undo it! But once you learn a few handy tips, it’s not too difficult to learn to score your bread dough like a professional baker. And scoring bread successfully was surprisingly one of the hardest parts for me to get right. See loaves below with the great expansion where the loaf was scored.Learning to make great sourdough bread comes with many challenges. Slashing both reduces the unpredictability and increases the loaf’s ability to expand once it meets a hot oven (aiding the oven spring). More importantly, however, slashing is used to help a bread expand in the oven without exploding, cracking, or creating unsightly bulges. First, it can be used as a decorative element on breads, to create a signature look, or to create a design to help bakers of many loaves to tell one from the other. Slashing or scoring a loaf of bread: This refers to cutting the outside of the dough with a very sharp razor (called lame) just before it goes in the oven.
WIRE MONKEY BREAD LAME HOW TO
Here is a wee video to show you how to attach the razor blade onto your bread lame. These cuts controls where the loaf expands during baking. A lame, pronounced "LAHM" (French for "blade), is a great tool for scoring bread just before it goes into the oven.Īttractive patterns can be created as well as deep and precise cuts.
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