A retired baker told me my bread was too pretty and it's been bugging me for a week
I was at the farmers market in Boise last Saturday and this older guy named Walt stopped at my stall. He bought a loaf of my sourdough, looked it over for a while, and told me it was "too pretty." At first I thought he was joking or being mean, but he explained that he baked for 30 years at a shop in Spokane and he could tell from the crust that I was proofing cold and scoring shallow so it would look good for photos. He said his old boss used to yell at him for the same thing. I've been scoring pretty patterns for 2 years because that's what gets likes on my bakery page, and I never once thought about how it changes the crumb. Walt said the steam gets trapped differently when you cut shallow and the inside ends up tighter than it should. I tried his way on Tuesday, one deep cut down the middle, and the loaf was the best one I've made all season. Now I'm kinda mad at myself for chasing the look for so long. Anybody else fall into this trap with their scoring?