I decided to try to make some Cuban bread and read/watched many recipes. Several of then say to use a wet shoestring pressed into the length of the loaf top just prior to baking. It results in a perfect score. Anyone else run across this technique? Or have I been totally oblivious to what everyone else knew? By the way, the string is removed after baking and prior to eating.
I wonder how this would work on baguettes, given the difficulty I and others have had with a blade.
But baguettes typically have 3+ scores so cant imagine how that would work. Personally i think theres over emphasis on blade handling and angles etc when in (at least my) reality its been more about shaping and proofing and oven temps which when all done correctly cause any cut to burst regardless of angles and other factors. But maybe give it a shot and we all might discover something new !
I'll use 3+ short pieces of string.
In short, it didn’t work. Unfortunately, I can't figure out how to post photos. The loaves are all made from the same batch of dough and baked at the same time, but there are differences. The two loaves without strings were baked on the top rack, the other two on the middle rack. The strings didn’t create a score and left a rather unappealing dark line in the bread. They each had a side blowout. The loaves without the strings were scored with a sharp paring knife, which is easy to do with this recipe, and had no blowouts. I find that baguettes tend to be more difficult to score with the knife. Maybe it's the dough, the only difference being the addition of lard.
Maybe the lack of success was because of the type of shoelaces. These were new and the dark line may have come from the dye or something in the laces. Kitchen twine is suggested instead of laces. But with the ease of scoring with a knife, I won't try the shoelace method again.
Flavor wise, I can't say I like Cuban bread. Maybe I haven't baked it correctly, but this was the second recipe I've tried and both tasted the same. Back to baguettes.