If we don’t give it a direct route out of the bread, it will make its own way out and form an ugly crack.
Bake day is one of my favorite days. I wake up excited and the first thing I do is take my sourdough loaf out of the fridge and pre-heat a cast iron pot in the oven to 500ºF. I do this even before coffee! Once the oven and pan has pre-heated, it’s time to bake. Carefully transfer the dough to the (smoking hot) cast iron pot by carefully inverting it into the pot. Then, it’s important to slash the dough. We slash the dough because there is air in the dough that needs to escape. If we don’t give it a direct route out of the bread, it will make its own way out and form an ugly crack. You can slash the dough with a cross in the center, straight down the middle, along the side or wherever you like. You can also make a little pattern in the dough with shallow cuts, but you’ll need a big slash too. If you do decide to make a pattern in the dough, it’s important to dust it with flour first. The flour on the surface of the dough outlines your pattern when the dough rises, allowing the pattern to really shine.