If you’ve been placing the flat underside of your loaf on the cutting board and the curved top facing the ceiling, bad news—you’re among the masses of improper bread slicers. Somehow knowing that we’ve been slicing bread wrong for generations means using the phrase “the best thing since sliced bread” seems kind of wrong now too. If you’re wondering how bread can even be improperly sliced, it comes down to what makes slicing easiest and least likely to damage the loaf—and your hands.
“It’s easier to slice bread on its side because the crust tends to be harder on the bottom,” shares Kevin Chun, executive chef at The Williamsburg Hotel and Brooklyn Bread Lab. “You want to keep the slice intact, so by carving from the crispier end, it allows for a cleaner cut.” Gasp! Does that mean the heart-shaped ridges at the top aren’t a guiding point for our knives? You bet.
If you think Kevin’s advice is unusual, you should know that top chefs across the globe share the side-slicing sentiment and use the trick in their commercial kitchens and bakeries to serve up restaurant-perfect slabs, including grain-free bread. Chefs also seem to think there are better ways to store bread than most of us are used to.
In a recent interview published in The Daily Mail, Sarah Jampel, a restaurant worker, discussed how much easier it is to slice delicious crusty bread on its side. “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.” You’ll want to try this hack the next time you make our mouthwatering cinnamon raisin bread recipe.
Here are more brilliant kitchen hacks you’ll wish you’d known sooner.
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