![]() The sharper it is, the more defined your scoring, so you will need to change your tool every 5 loaves or so. ![]() Here is a short demonstration:Īnother extremely important tool is razor blades. I tried scalpels, craft knives, tools for fruit carving – nothing comes close to the razor blade. Sift a little bit of flour at a time and spread it evenly with the palm of your hand. ![]() The key word is fine. If you use too much flour you risk to have a thick layer of unpalatable, raw flour that will not taste good, and will be hard to score through. To allow our scoring to stand out we need to cover the face of the bread with a fine layer of white, all-purpose flour. The first thing you will need is a flour sifter or fine sieve. You probably already have all the necessary tools and if, by chance, you don’t – they are cheap and easy to find! It is my pleasure to tell you that making strikingly beautiful bread does not require anything that is rare or costly. You can try using this first, but don’t feel like you need to.Īs long as your dough is strong, well shaped and cold – you’re good to go! Essential tools If you want to learn about the exact kind of dough formula I use, please visit my blog entry here. I always keep my dough in the fridge overnight and this results in a firm and resilient surface – perfect for scoring! If you proof at room temperature, at least pop the banetton into the freezer for 20 minutes so that your surface isn’t wobbly. You want to have a tightly bound loaf so that it holds its own and responds well to your blade. Speaking of which, shaping is another crucial component. Artistic scoring takes in between 3 and 8 minutes and during this time a loaf can turn into a pancake if the dough isn’t strong enough to keep its shape. Gluten development, as a result of kneading or stretching (whichever is your favorite), is very important. Bread over 85% hydration will be too soft to work with. Lower hydration will make your dough inflexible, so it will not spread sufficiently. What about hydration? Many are surprised to know that my bread is high hydration – in between 75% and 85%. Almost any kind of bread you like to eat, you can score! You do not need to compromise the bread taste for its aspect. The effect is slightly different depending on the flour properties, but it is always beautiful. I have seen my patterns scored on rye bread and on gluten-free bread. I have scored all-white bread, 100% wholewheat, spelt, and any combination in between. One of the things with, surprisingly, little importance is flour type. There are many wonderful courses that can help you with that. Although I will specify the most crucial aspects, I will not focus on teaching you how to make good bread. Most of the times the scoring fails because the dough was subpar. If you want to score reliably beautiful and precise patterns, you have to make sure you have covered and perfected the essential stages of bread-making – mixing, fermentation, shaping and proofing. With a few exceptions, any kind of recipe or formula will work great as long as it is done correctly. One of the questions I am often asked is What kind of dough works for this scoring? The answer is good dough. Let the journey begin! What dough do you need? This is a tricky intersection of precision and improvisation, science and magic, blueprint and creativity. What we are about to learn is part baking, part art. If your pretty loaf doesn’t come out of the oven that pretty, it’s okay. I have scored hundreds of loaves, tested concepts and made mistakes, so you don’t have to. I have been meticulous and deliberate in trying to make my bread look beautiful and intricate, applying principles of symmetry and negative space, but also physics to account for the expansion of the dough “canvas”. Once you know how it’s done – you can master it!Īnother thing you might want to know about me is that I have four years of art school and graphic design experience under my belt. An intricately scored loaf might seem daunting only at first glance. I hope this does not put you off, but rather shows you that you can definitely learn what I am about to teach you. I’m sharing this so you know I am not a professional baker and sourdough is not how I earn my living. My name is Anna, I am from Moldova and I have been baking since the fall of 2016, making anywhere in between 1 and 4 loaves per week, balancing baking against a full-time job. This might not have the interactive interface of an online course, but rest assured that what matters is still here. At this time I would like to make the information freely available to everyone. I would like to thank immensely everyone who took it and supported my work and I hope you found the knowledge was worth your money. What you see on this page used to be a paid course.
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