For just a few years now, I’ve seen some bakers on Instagram rating their dough twice: simply earlier than placing the dough within the oven as is customary and once more 5-7 minutes into the bake, chopping the identical line a second time. That is after the preliminary steaming interval however earlier than the crust hardens an excessive amount of for the blade to slip by means of. The lid is off for lower than a minute earlier than the baking continues. This re-scoring of the dough is supposed to encourage extra opening or “bloom” of the rating by re-creating a zone of weak spot for the dough to push by means of. The purpose is normally to guard smaller, detailed cuts from tearing and to encourage a bigger and airier loaf — in concept.
I designed this experiment to see the affect of scoring as soon as versus twice on rating bloom, bread form, and the crumb of two equivalent doughs. To make the experiment extra enjoyable, the 2 doughs are a swirled mixture of a plain dough and a blue butterfly pea flower dough. [Here is the recipe if you want to try it ➡ Butterfly Pea Flower Swirl Sourdough Bread.] I mixed and layered the white and blue doughs after the majority fermentation. The loaves had been formed, proofed, and baked underneath equivalent circumstances, aside from re-scoring one of many doughs (at all times on the left). The blade was at a 30-45° angle for all the scoring.
Scored twice: barely extra open middle space
The primary 5 minutes of a bake are normally thought of an important for steam. I eliminated the lid on the “scored as soon as” dough to make sure it had the identical circumstances because the “scored twice” dough, however I most likely ought to have left the lid on to showcase the everyday course of. I’m pretty sure, nevertheless, that this venting of steam didn’t have a lot affect. Furthermore, the “scored as soon as” dough was the primary dough I loaded into the oven, so when the lids got here off it had baked about two minutes longer than the “scored twice” dough.
Scored twice: flatter and wider
Outcomes
Re-scoring the dough yielded a wider, flatter loaf with maybe a slighly extra open crumb. This loaf additionally had extra slice dimension consistency from finish to finish. The customary strategy to scoring, as soon as simply earlier than baking, resulted in a a taller, narrower bread with extra tapering of slices towards the ends of the loaf.
As famous the crumb distinction was barely important, so except you’ve got a really detailed rating you’re attempting to guard with a strengthened giant lower, the choice so as to add this further step of scoring on the 5-7 minute mark is a matter of choice for bread form and course of complexity.
