Bread Scoring Guide
No matter how you score your sourdough (or even if you forego cutting it altogether), your homemade bread will be a beautiful piece of artisanal food art. However, if you’re dying to make loaves with beautiful patterns and designs etched into the crust, I’m here to help!
I’ve had plenty of opportunities to practice scoring and figure out what does and does not work for achieving those lovely crust pictures and the ever sought after “ear.” The following is a step-by-step guide to the process, a list of the tricks of the trade, and an explanation of why those tricks work. And while I’m hoping this is a comprehensive guide for all of your bread scoring needs, please check out my Instagram feed for more scoring inspiration, and don’t hesitate to DM me with specific questions. I’m always happy to chat about bread!
Please also keep in mind that good bread begins and ends with a well executed fermentation. If your dough is over or under-proofed, or if your starter is weak, no amount of beautiful scoring or stenciling will compensate. If you’re struggling with achieving your desired crumb, crust, or oven spring, please check out my detailed Sourdough Bread recipe for some guidance in the process.
Bread Scoring Guide:
Scoring Procedure: A chronological list of the steps to achieving a good score
Preheat the oven with your dutch oven and lid inside. Allow the oven to come to temperature for at least 20 minutes prior to baking.
Remove your fully proofed dough in its bread basket from the refrigerator, and turn it out onto a round of parchment paper that is roughly the size of your dutch oven.
Use a pastry brush to brush the crustier or thicker clumps of flour (residue from the baskets) off of your dough’s surface.
If you are scoring the dough only, coat the surface in an even layer of rice flour. If you are stenciling the dough with a pattern, spray the dough’s surface with water and pat it dry with a paper towel. For a stencil, the dough’s surface should be tacky and free of flour but not dripping wet.
Score your loaf using a sharp razor or bread lame. Alternatively stencil your loaf by generously sprinkling rice flour on your dough over your stencil. Then carefully remove the stencil (a pair of tweezers can help with paper stencils). Remember, you still need to score your dough even if you are only stenciling a pattern. A deep, large circle score around the pattern is usually enough.
Transfer your dough to the preheated dutch oven, cover with the lid, and bake. Remove the lid about half way through baking to achieve a nicely caramelized crust and contrasting scoring pattern.
Scoring Tips & Tricks: All my most important scoring tricks and why they work
Retard your Dough: Scoring bread is fundamentally a way to allow for expansion as your dough bakes. Each cut essentially becomes a point of expansion on your bread’s crust. You will notice that your dough already begins to expand when you make the first cut, before you’ve even put it in the oven. Retarding your dough overnight in the refrigerator makes the cuts easier to execute and prevents excessive spread prior to baking. Some bakers even put their dough in the freezer for 20 minutes before scoring. I haven’t tried this, but with a high hydration loaf made using ancient or lower gluten grains, I can see how this would be beneficial.
Preheat your Oven & Dutch Oven + Lid: A properly preheated oven is crucial for achieving a successful scoring pattern for two reasons. The first is that the oven’s high heat and steam is essential for attaining that big oven spring. Now some bakers bemoan oven spring as the death of their scoring patterns because as the loaf expands, it can expand beyond the slashes that you’ve made. However, I feel the opposite. The hallmark of a good bake is a proper oven spring, and if you create enough expansion points (i.e. cuts) in your loaf’s score, the pattern shouldn’t split even with the loftiest of oven springs.
The second reason that a properly preheated oven is essential for a great bread score is that the flour on the crust’s surface will fade if you do not have enough steam and heat from the beginning of the bake. I have seen some really beautiful scoring patterns, but without the contrast from white flour on a darker crust, the intricate cuts and details in the pattern are easily lost. To avoid this, leave your oven and cooking vessel for at least 20 minutes at temperature before inserting your bread to bake.
Coat your Dough in Rice Flour Before Cutting: Whether I am executing a simple spiral score or doing an elaborate colored stencil, I always use rice flour as opposed to all-purpose or bread flour on my dough’s surface. Rice flour is simply more consistent than the others. Wheat flours can fade if your dough’s surface is too wet or if the oven is not as well preheated. Rice flour on the other hand stays beautifully on the crust throughout the bake (and after) and does a great job creating the contrast needed to properly showcase the scoring pattern.
Have the Proper Tools for the Job: In addition to the dutch oven and the rice flour, I routinely use parchment rounds. These make transferring my dough to the hot dutch oven a breeze and allow me to take my time with the actual scoring. I also recommend a good quality bread lame. I love my UFO lame from Wire Monkey, but there are a number of options available. A squirt bottle filled with water comes in handy for stenciling; thread or dental floss can help with geometric patterns or any patterns that require symmetry; a pastry brush is a good tool for dusting off your dough after it’s been removed from the bread basket; and a variety of circle cookie cutters come in handy for making perfectly round scores. Finally a toothpick or chopstick is excellent for tracing your pattern prior to actually making the cut, and a pair of good sharp kitchen scissors help make deep cuts when needed. I also tend to score my dough on a parchment round placed on top of my pizza peel. This just makes it even easier for me to transfer my dough right into my hot dutch oven.
Be Mindful of the Depth of Your Cuts: Deep cuts will result in greater expansion points through the baking process. As a rule, you want some deeper cuts on your pattern. These will likely be the points where the “ear” presents itself during the bake. However, while the deep cuts are necessary to allow for oven spring and expansion, you want to make sure that your pattern is still recognizable, so, in order to get more fine details, you will also need to make some medium and some shallow cuts in strategic locations. When you are first beginning, the locations of these various cuts will seem a mystery, but over time you’ll start to understand how your dough expands in the oven and where you need to make deeper or shallower cuts. To help you get a feel, pay attention to pictures of the score prior to baking. You can usually recognize where the baker made a deep or shallower cut. I always try to post pictures of my scored loaves prior to baking for this reason.
Have Fun: By the time you get to the score, the hardest part of the bread process is behind you. The score is just for fun, so make sure to let it be fun and not stress too much about the end result! As I mentioned before, the score will not ruin your bread, so don’t be too upset if it doesn’t come out exactly as you had hoped. You will still have a beautiful loaf of sourdough to enjoy!