If you've gotten into baking bread at home, you've probably run into a somewhat vague step right before you pop the loaf in the oven: Score the bread. But what is scoring bread? How does one score bread? How does scoring work, and why would you do it?
First, the basics. Scoring is just cutting into the lump of dough that you're about to bake. It usually applies to things like crusty white bread or sourdough boules, the style of bread with a crisp, crackly crust and a tender interior. "In the heat of the oven the loaf wants to expand; that expansion is also known as oven spring. If you don't cut the dough, the loaf will stay smaller but still have a blowout somewhere on its side," Tartine baker Chad Robertson explained in an interview he did with Food & Winein 2017. "If you cut it, it can expand to its full volume. So the slash is a decorative way to control how it expands." Scoring can also be an aesthetic concern. The contrasting markings that various bakers use to score their loaves become a kind of artistic signature.
Martin Philip, a baker with King Arthur Baking Company, explained scoring further to me in an email interview. "With scoring, we effectively tell [the dough] where to open. This produces a more beautiful loaf and ensures that the loaf expands to its maximum potential." Great! That sounds like what we want, bread-wise. But how to do it?
Scoring bread is easiest with a sharp implement. You can use a sharp paring knife or kitchen scissors to snip lines into the top of the unbaked bread boule. Or you can use a tool that professional bakers use to score, called a bread lame. It's essentially a razor blade affixed to a handle for easy maneuvering. If you have a razor blade, you can even use that without a handle, as long as you work carefully. Martin Philip prefers a simple lame with a metal or wood handle, like King Arthur's black walnut lame or double-sided lame.
How to score the bread
Now that you have your scoring tool and your ball of dough that will soon be a loaf of bread, you're ready to go. Choose a simple pattern, like a cross or a hashtag symbol, and steadily slash marks into the bread. But make sure to really cut it. In my own sourdough baking at home, I've often tried to score bread only to have a little patch of crust erupt at random somewhere else on the boule. "People tend to score too lightly. While the ideal cut depth does vary by the type of loaf, as a general rule it's essential to get through the skin, cutting at least a quarter-inch deep," Philip told me.
Wondering how to recreate those super-attractive loaves you see on Instagram? Don't worry about making fancy patterns, at least at first. "The primary purpose of scoring is to release the loaf. I see many people focusing on decorative patterns which fail to release the loaf," Philip added. "Keep it simple, cut a basic cross, box, or cross-hatch pattern for best results."
Once you get the hang of scoring, then you can add smaller, less functional marks as decoration, and play around with designs. "Many aspects of breadmaking are like pottery or learning a musical instrument," Philip wrote. "Focus on the process, be a good student, try to enjoy the music of bread as it cools — eat your mistakes and try again! In time your hands will remember what works."
Scoring bread is easiest with a sharp implement. You can use a sharp paring knife or kitchen scissors to snip lines into the top of the unbaked bread boule. Or you can use a tool that professional bakers use to score, called a bread lame. It's essentially a razor blade affixed to a handle for easy maneuvering.
Scoring/ slashing your loaf allows your loaf to burst at the cut when it expands in the oven with oven spring. If you don't score your loaf it will burst at the weakest point and you might end up with a little ball of dough erupting from the side of your loaf.
Cold proofing your dough for at least 5 hours before you attempt to score your bread can help to make it easier to score. Of course if your bread is over or under fermented, this may not work, but in general, cold dough is much easier to score than room temperature.
If you don't have a lame, just check your kitchen drawers or knife block for these alternatives. All will work as long as the blade is very sharp. Kitchen scissors: Simply snipping the dough surface at an angle with kitchen scissors will create deep enough cuts.
Use an X-Acto knife to score the top of a loaf instead of a French blade called a lame. Use a heavy skillet, preheated in the oven, as a baking stone for a round loaf. Use a spray bottle to create steam, instead of a pan of water or the skillet/ice cube method.
More often than not, sourdough bread deflates when scored if it's been over proofed. What is this? If you shape the dough and then place into the fridge for cold fermentation (or proofing as it's sometimes referred to), the dough will continue to ferment.
Steam will always find the weakest point in the dough in order to escape. In addition, if you score your dough too deeply, there ends up being too much dough for the steam to be able to lift. Think of the score like a shelf that you're creating, not just an incision that you're making.
There is no need to press hard and score excessively deep, but the cut does need to be deep enough so the surface of the dough doesn't fuse back together when baking — somewhere between 1/4" and 1/2" deep.
First and foremost, scoring bread dough with decorative cuts serves an important purpose: it guides a loaf to rise in a consistent, controlled, and optimal manner.
Your dough can become sticky when you add too much water or the flour isn't suitable for the type of dough you are making. Over proofing or fermenting the dough can also result in the gluten structure weakening causing sticky dough.
If you want to score bread without a lame, another option is to use a pair or scissors or kitchen shears. Since kitchen shears are most likely to be food-safe, they're definitely the better option, but standard household scissors will also work to score bread, as long as they are clean.
However, you don't need a bread lame to score effectively. You can also use a double-edged razor blade, sharp, clean kitchen scissors or sometimes a sharp, serrated knife to achieve your design.
A clean, confident score across the top of the dough with a bread lame (essentially, a razor blade affixed to a handle). The bread lame (pronounced “lahm”) is a key tool for bakers, though not every baker is dedicated to which one they use.
A clean, confident score across the top of the dough with a bread lame (essentially, a razor blade affixed to a handle). The bread lame (pronounced “lahm”) is a key tool for bakers, though not every baker is dedicated to which one they use.
If you don't have a lame, there are plenty of household tools that you can use to score your bread. Try scoring with a serrated knife, utility knife, or a pair of kitchen shears or scissors. Bread doesn't need to be complicated. You can use the tools you already have!
Introduction: My name is Merrill Bechtelar CPA, I am a clean, agreeable, glorious, magnificent, witty, enchanting, comfortable person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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