Bread Scoring Calculator

A shallow blade angle — at or below roughly 30–35° depending on shape — is what actually produces an 'ear,' the flap of crust that lifts and curls during oven spring, so the calculator recommends a deeper cut (typically 10–12 mm) to give that flap enough material to form. Steeper angles closer to 90° produce a plainer rustic split instead, and get a shallower recommended depth (6–8 mm) since there's no flap being deliberately lifted.

Each shape has different oven-spring behavior, so the calculator branches its logic by shape: a round boule defaults to a cross pattern for one or two cuts or parallel cuts for more, an oval batard treats a single cut as a classic ear-producing slash but shifts to a chevron for multiple cuts, and a baguette always uses short, evenly spaced parallel diagonal slashes regardless of cut count. Selecting a different shape doesn't just rescale the same recommendation — it changes which pattern is suggested entirely.

For a baguette, cut length is capped at whichever is smaller: 10 cm or 15% of the loaf's length, reflecting the classic short, overlapping diagonal slashes used on a long, narrow loaf. A boule's single cut instead runs about 70% of its diameter, since a round loaf is typically scored with fewer, longer cuts across its surface rather than many short ones.

It's still calculated the same way — Cut Length multiplied by Number of Cuts — so with a single cut it just equals that one cut's recommended length. It becomes more useful for multi-cut patterns like parallel baguette slashes or a boule scored with several cuts, where it gives you the combined length of blade travel across the whole loaf.