The Flour Station
What are the different slash marks on top of the loaves?
Traditionally, European villagers used communal ovens to bake their family's bread. Cleverly, they would slash the loaf with their family sign so they could identify it once baked. Now we use these shallow slashes - also known as 'docking' or 'scoring' - to encourage oven spring (the rapid increase in the volume of bread in its first few minutes of baking).