10 | April | 2024 | Bewitching Kitchen

Inspired by great bakers who share their work on Instagram, this is my version of sourdough decorated with wafer paper made into stencil thanks to a paper puncher. A special thank you to my friend Dorothy for bringing wonderful baking ideas to my radar…

You can use any bread recipe you like, mine was a very simple formula (480g bread flour; 20g whole wheat flour; 75g sourdough starter at 100% hydration; 350g water; 10g salt). Use the method described here.

To decorate the bread, you will need a paper puncher like one from this set. Cut two strips of wafer paper and punch the design. Make it in a way that they can criss-cross and keep the design flowing (I actually used scissors to make final adjustments. Once your bread is ready to bake, lay the wafer paper on top, dust with flour (I like to use tapioca flour for that), gently pull the paper out, and score some pattern with a razor blade. Bake as you normally do. Steps are shown below.

The possibilities are of course endless! You can paint the flowers, use different shapes to make your stencil, add it to batard shaped bread, so many things to try…