Slicing a loaf of bread doesn’t require much skill: you just pick up a knife and get cutting.
But a restaurant worker has revealed how we’ve all been slicing our loaves in the wrong way.
Sarah Jampel, who says she works in a restaurant two days a week, has said that you can produce more consistent slices if you cut a loaf on its side rather than from the top down.
Sarah Jampel of Food 52 says she cuts bread on its side when slicing loaves at a restaurant where she works
Sarah, who shared the advice on website Food 52, says she never cuts bread from the top down, with the bread resting on its bottom, and flattest, side.
Instead, she stands the bread on its side, scores it with a ruler and then slices using clean sawing motions.
The method requires a steady hand – the one that’s not wielding the knife – to hold the bread in place as the loaf is no longer resting on its flattest, and most stable, side.
It can be particularly tricky if you are cutting loaves of sourdough, or long loaves, as the sides are often narrower than the thick top and bottom.
Normally, bread is sliced from the top down but Sarah suggests that cutting it sideways will produce more consistent slices
However Sarah says cutting the bread in this way will preserve the loaf’s shape and also produce more consistent slices.
She says many restaurants and bakeries cut their loaves in this way.
The technique works particularly well for airy or filled loaves, which have a tendency to squash when cutting.
She says slicing using her side-on method means that these loaves won’t squash.
The method also works well on tough, crusty bread, which normally requires a lot of pressure in order to cut through the tough top layer, she states.
Cutting these loaves on their side means there is less of the tough crust to saw through, she says.
Sarah wrote: ‘At the restaurant where I work a couple days of the week, I slice two-foot-long loaves of gluten-free bread into 1/2-inch-thick slices.
‘The best way to get consistent slices and preserve the shape of the loaf, which has a tendency to crumble, is to turn the bread on its side.’