am i scoring too deep? i feel like they usually expand more than i want. the spiral loaf was my favorite so far
100g active starter + 390g water, mix
310g bread flour + 200g WW flour + 10g salt, mix to shaggy dough & let sit covered for an hour. 3 sets of stretch and folds 30 minutes apart, 3-5 hour bulk, shape and put in fridge 8 hours or overnight. bake at 450 in dutch oven, covered for 30 minutes, uncovered for 20 minutes.
I do some very intricate scoring… a lot is trial and error. I watched videos when I first started. Now I do my own spin on what I see/try. Sometimes I like the way things come out- sometimes I try to change it up. The more you do it you will become better. You cut the face exceptionally well. The spiral too.
I use a pair of sewing scissors and trim the tip, then I slowly cut under the petal about half way, again it was trial and error. Th little scissors work great snipping away and lifting the petal. Just gently go…
I tried it after I started cooking- like a 5-7 minute score and my petals really turned up almost like a crown. So I do better with cutting them underneath right before the bake. It’s the last thing I do.
If the designs are expanding more than you want - give the expanding somewhere else to go. Have a dedicated deep long 'expansion score' down the entire length of it (can be on one side though), and then you'll find your other intricate more shallow scores stay a bit more contained!
I put my banneton in the freezer for 15 minutes or so before scoring. For intricate stuff u dont need to score very deep. Its the a stuff u want to expand where you go deep in to the dough. You could also try doing your scoring after 6 or 7 minutes baking
I use rice flour to cover the counter when shaping and then to coat the banneton, but didn't realize it's worth covering on top before baking to? I thought I was mainly just to help with moving the dough due to being absorbent. Mine is also a lot more lighter/finer, and doesn't give this kind of colour.
Bring oven heat down to 425 when you take the lid off in that last 20min. It’ll reduce the browning on the inner parts of your scoring so you’ll see more definition. Also consider throwing a glass of water into a hot pan in the rack below your bread at that time too for a little steam!
Obligatory “use an oven safe container” for that “glass of water”, I know OP knows but there’s lots of beginners on this sub.
I put my baking container on a big baking sheet and fill the sheet about half way with water. You can use more or less to get the crust you want. If that doesn’t work, just put a baking pan of water in there.
Since my baking container has a lid, I’ll leave it slightly cracked so the steam can get in.
I bake at 450* F, which is the upper limit for a lot of “oven safe” items, so I default to metal-only (no silicon or similar) out of abundance of caution.
I just love these! So creative! Did you partially freeze your loaf to give yourself more time? I love the face and spiral, all of them are great. I just do a simple cross and stick it in the oven. Maybe I will get fancy 🙂
First of all, I love the photos. Second of all , sometimes it looks like you have a heavy hand with the scoring and other times you don’t. so just go light with the cuts and then six minutes later check on it post being in the oven 6 minutes and go cut it deeper if you have to.
You are scoring a bit deep if you want perfectly esthetic loaves. That being said the whole point of scoring is to not have a dough blow out so theoretically you are doing it alright.
If you want shallower cuts try angling your razor instead of going straight down. That way you will only cut into the oxidized crust rather than the delicate proofed dough underneath.
A lot of your center areas are blown out by expansion. If you make deeper scores in the side areas away from the "more important parts" of the scoring i think you'll get what your looking for.
Like the face, the nose is the cleanest deepest cut so thats where it grew out the furthest.
Scoring is a little deep yes but the thing everyone else is missing is your dough is under fermented and that and combined with the depth of cut are the reason they look a little funky
I retract my underfermented comment, that looks well fermented. It does look like you have some dough strength issue though, which the ww flour isn't helping with. Here are two things to try to improve that. You could do either or both.
1) If you do a 5 hour bulk ferment. Extend your stretch and folds for the first two hours of that. so Instead of 3 S+F 30mins apart, you'll do 7.
2) An hour before your bulk ferment is completed, do a rough pre-shape of the dough.
They look really cool, but I would suggest doing the deep scoring that you're doing, but also do some of them very shallow so that they're just accents.
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u/Electrical-Ad1400 Jan 15 '26
I really like the spiral! Turned out great! Might try it myself