ARTISAN BREAD STENCILLING: FIVE SIMPLE STEPS FOR BEAUTIFUL DESIGNS

Walking into a fancy bakery can take your breath away. Forget elegant pastries and carefully piped frostings, bread can often be the most beautiful element of a bakery’s display case. Using the simple technique of artisan bread stencilling, bakers become artists, and a loaf of bread becomes a blank canvas in their capable hands.

If you’ve swooned over gorgeously decorated loaves and assumed you couldn’t replicate the look at home, think again!

Artisan bread stenciling is the technique of dusting a pattern onto the surface of bread in flour (or cocoa) using a stencil. You can buy pre-cut stencils, or you can make your own. Making your own allows you to give your bread a personal touch — a signature of sorts — that adds a level of craftsmanship and care to your baking.

Step 1: Draw a design

Think of the design you want to create. Keep in mind that more elaborate designs will be less likely to show up well; simpler designs without too many flourishes are best when you’re starting out.

Create designs that speak to the bread itself: a bee for a honey wheat bread, a sunflower for seeded bread, a grain sheaf for rye bread, and so on. You can stencil your name, the word “homemade,” or even just a pretty swirl.

Draw your design on paper (heavy card stock works nicely here). If you want a sturdier version, trace the design using a marker onto a piece of heavy plastic.

Step 2: Cut out your bread stencilling designCut out the design. Cut out the parts of the design that you want to show up: The negative, empty spaces will be dusted in with flour.

Once you’ve cut out the edges of the design itself, cut around the stencil so you can easily place it onto your loaf (if it’s too big, it’ll be unwieldy and difficult to use).

Step 3: Make your breadFor beginners just learning how to stencil, a round loaf is the easiest to practice on. Once you get the hang of stenciling, you can do it on just about any kind of bread,

Step 4: Stencil away!Let the dough rise. Right before you’re ready to bake, use the stencil.

Carefully place the stencil on the surface of the loaf. Using a sifter or sieve, liberally dust flour over the stencil in an even, fairly thick layer. If you’re baking a dark loaf (such as a rye bread), white flour will show up nicely. If you prefer a dark pattern, you can use cocoa instead of flour.

Very gently lift the stencil off the surface of the dough, taking care not to disturb the design you’ve just made.

Depending on your recipe, you may need to slash the surface of your bread with a lame. If this is required, do so carefully.The slashing can add to the decorative nature of your bread. slash in a diagonal pattern around the stencil, creating a border for this design.

Step 5: Bake your breadBake your bread according to your recipe. When it’s ready, you’ll see the beautifully stencilled pattern baked onto the surface of your loaf.

As with all aspects of baking, practice is the best method, stencilling is an art that requires trial and error: Some designs will show up better than others. Some breads look better with a flour stencil, others with cocoa.

The best way to learn is to try it yourself! Once you make your own stencil once, you’ll be hooked.