Side to side!

I love fiddling with flour and slashes, as anyone who comes to our baking classes will confirm. Recently, I've started to experiment using a muslin cloth to create some nice looking loaves!

The loaf in question for this post is a combination of white and wholemeal flour - we call it a whitemeal.

After kneading and proving for one hour, I half covered the dough with a muslin cloth.

Then I covered (and I mean covered) the dough with plain flour.

Then I removed the cloth.

After leaving to prove for 45 minutes, I slashed the dough with a breadknife, at an angle of 45 degrees, then popped into a very hot oven for 30 minutes.

This produces great effects when baking, as the top of the loaf lifts up and pulls across the surface of the dough. Like this!

Great fun and it looks sensational to go from side to side!