I’m just getting started with learning all about making fancy artistic scores on my sourdough. I bake in a DO, heated up to 500 degrees, and put my dough on parchment and lower into pot. I’m in the habit of throwing in one ice cube and quickly putting on lid for a small amount of added steam. My problem is the finished bread crust doesn’t have a nice white to brown contrast (brown where the scores open up). I’m sprinkling a layer of AP flour on the dough and smoothing it out before I start scoring. Is the trick to just really have a thick layer of flour? Could it be the added steam is compacting and “crusting up” the white layer and making it fall off? What do people do to get the white to stay white and in place?
1 Like
Try without the ice – I do find that it can caramelize the exposed score openings. Also leave the lid on longer.
Both of those suggestions seem easy enough to test out. I think I will make those changes to my routine, but only do one at a time so I can see which one does the trick. I shall report back!
1 Like
I dust a mix of 50/50 rice and bread flour on dough before scoring. The rice doesn’t burn like wheat flour. It really helps the contrast of scoring.
I’m very satisfied with my bake today. I did the same exact scoring pattern with the same dough recipe. My only changes were #1, no ice cube in the DO. And #2, I did 2 layers of flour instead of one that was obviously too thin before. My flour was already a mix of rice and AP flour, it just wasn’t applied heavily enough.
On my next bake, I will plan to spray a very little mist of water on the dough before applying the sifted flour on top, just to help it stick a little better.
Before:
After:
