Why score a pattern into your bread?

Have you ever wondered why bakers score beautiful patterns onto bread?

Scoring a pattern onto bread allowed bakers to personalise their loaves and identify them once baked. Scoring is still used to add your mark to a loaf and it certainly has an impact on your final loaf!

During baking, your dough will do one final rise in the oven as the gas inside the loaf expands in the heat. Scoring will help guide how and where your loaf rises in a controlled way. Without scoring, the loaf could split randomly.

Scoring should be the last thing you do before you put your well-risen dough into the oven to bake. If you score the dough before it rises a second time this will effect the definition of the pattern and your dough may not rise.