An introduction to stenciling

In this case, stenciling is the practice of applying flour or cocoa powder to your dough, and then using a traditional handmade or store-bought stencil. Stenciling is simply for decorative purposes. It works nicely for special occasions, like a heart for Valentine’s Day, or maybe even your favorite sports team’s logo for a big game. It’s a nice, simple way to add some personality to your bread. As for the stencil itself, you can make them yourself with an X-Acto knife. Or, you can make them with a Cricut Maker machine; it takes digital files and cuts out the stencils for you. Or, as shown in the video above, Greg has found some some items at the hardware store that work quite well. He uses a patterned aluminum vent grate that is easily bent to the shape of your dough.

Scoring stenciled dough

When you’re scoring a stenciled loaf, you want to make sure that it accentuates the pattern you’ve chosen. For example, if you’re stenciling a boule and place the pattern in the middle of the loaf, you should choose the classic square scoring pattern so that you don’t score through the middle of the design.

Here’s what you’ll need

• A Stencil — we like to use card stock or store bought aluminum grates, like Greg uses in the video above.
• Flour and/or Cocoa powder, depending on how many layers of stenciling you’d like to add.
• Cheesecloth and string to hold and distribute the flour and/or cocoa powder.
• A dry brush to dust off your loaf, in the case you’d like to start over.
• Lame for scoring your dough after you’ve applied the stencil pattern.

How to stencil your bread

Once you’ve gathered all of the things you’ll need to stencil and score your loaf, you can follow the instructions below, or follow along to the video above.

Step 1: Load your dough into the base of your Challenger Bread Pan, or onto a surface where you can easily transport it to the base. With your dry brush, dust off any flour or grains that might be on surface of your dough.

Step 2: Position your stencil on the dough and get your flour ready to dust.

Step 3: Going from top to bottom, lightly dust flour over the stencil. Use your off hand to ensure the stencil stays in constant contact with the dough. Remember — less is more.

Step 4: Score your loaf in a way that accentuates the stencil!