Word of Mouth: La Grigne

La Grigne [pronounced (roughly!): la green-yeh], noun: In baking terms, this refers to the little lip of crust that pulls away from the body of the baking loaf right along the score-marks slashed in the surface. In french, this literally means "the grin."

The bakers in our midst will know how challenging it can be to get a good grigne on their loaves. Here are a few thoughts on how to get it right!

Just before going into the oven, artisan bakers (and industrious home bakers!) will cut slash marks in the tops of their loaves. In the oven, these slash marks become the escape route for the trapped gases inside. The marks also act like an accordion, helping the crust expand evenly as the loaf "springs" in the oven. Without the slash marks, the gases would break through the weakest point in the surface, tearing the crust randomly.

There's not really a scientific reason to make a grigne - it just looks more aesthetically pleasing on the finished loaf! As you slash the surface of the loaf, cut at an angle instead of straight down - like slitting an envelope, as the great Peter Reinhart says. This creates a little shelf, or grigne, of dough that will separate from the loaf as it bakes, becoming crusty and brown.

Have you had any success getting a grigne on your loaves at home?

(Image: Flickr member syvwlch licensed under Creative Commons)

Comments (12)

I love this post! I love how the French always have a word for extremely precise things like this, but not for stuff like "lock" (to say "I locked the door" you have to say "I shut the door with a key"). But anyway, I am getting really good at making these happen on my loaves of bread. I have become bread-obsessed lately and make it almost every day.

My daughter made a small boule last night and it came out with a lovely grigne, which she called a mohawk! I thought that was a pretty good word for it too.

i've been baking for quite a while, but i've never, ever heard this term...why can't we just call it "making our cuts," like they did at the bakery i worked for for about a year?

secondly--i've had success here using very sharp, very thin, long knives. avoid knives with very "sharp" serrations--shorter, "wavy" serrations are awesome, though(i use a Komachi bread knife for this). it's not a bad idea to run the blade through flour before making your cuts, either.

The word has to do with gathering fabric - maybe in English we call that a false pleat. Following up on Learp17, to me it's interesting that the French have a word for "to glaze with apricot preserves" (abricoter), but don't distinguish between dough and batter (pate), as English does, as far as I can tell. In any case a grigne adds to the joy of good bread and/or makes for nice curtains.

I used to have a lot of problems slashing my breads but something that helped me immensely was a tip about making an "ssss" sound as you draw your knife (serrated is best as rasellers0 noted) to make the cut. Like you say "sssssssssssslash." I'm not sure why that works but it does for me.

I also have problems slashing my breads (which I have been making tons of lately - thank you to the reintroduction to no-knead slow-rise).

I recently recalled a tip to cut the bread with kitchen shears if you have trouble knife slashing or if the dough is in a tight space. Will try that on the next round!

One wee trick I've learned from Peter Reinhardt's most recent book is to uncover the loaves for the last hour or so of proofing, so that the exterior dries out and skins over a bit. Of everything I've tried, this seems to have an effect on the grigne (I call them ears) formation moreso than other factors. The other half of the equation is good oven spring and IME, the more loaves you have in the oven at once, the better the oven spring.

I've found you have to be quick and intent when slashing. Do it in one fast motion like you really mean it and anything reasonably sharp will work. I usually use a pairing knife but one of these days I'll get around to ordering a lame from King Arthur baking which is the tool that's designed for this purpose.

You can devise your own lame too. I have the KA one, but it's frustrating because once the blade is dull, you can't change it. The improvised lame is a razor blade on a wooden stick (the stirrer stick from Starbucks works perfectly). You can change them as often as needed and it costs next to nothing.

Rasellers0, la grigne is a term discussed in all the bread baking textbooks that I've ever seen. You "make a cut" in order to allow for proper oven bloom and the ear is a by-product of that process. If you're not getting the ears, the loaf is overproofed, underproofed, or the oven is too hot.

Hey, sorry to be so pedantic, but if this is a French term it is not pronounced "la green-yeh" – that would be Italian, which sounds out the e at the end. In French it is something sort of in between "green" and "grin".

bubble--oh, i know WHY you make the cuts--like i said, i've worked in commercial bakeries before--i just have a problem with people using terms that aren't really neccesary; it's one of those weird things you see (and i don't mean to be offensive here) mostly in home cooks that like to use their knowledge of terminology as a way of showing off; i've never USED a baking book. i was shown how to bake by the baker at La Jolla(restaurant in Montgomery, Al), while i was working there as a dishwasher, and moved up from there; as a result, i've never learned the terms for a lot of stuff, just how to do it in mass-production capacity.

but isn't it nice to just become aware of that little tidbit of information, that little piece of culture and history? there's really a lot of history to bread making and a lot of people (professionals and laymen) find it very interesting. no one is saying this term must be used, but knowing it does not equate to showing off, (which someone people will find a way of doing whether they know a word or not). should we avoid specialty language because we are afraid of being seen as pretentious? what a loss!

furthermore, I think the author of the post mostly brought up the term to shine a light on the process itself. so go ahead and call it making the cuts, I'm sure you will do it just aw well as someone making grins. :)

Whether you meant offense or not, what you stated IS offensive. The term was likely developed by people who never worked in a bakery, or anywhere else for that matter. For quite a long time, the people who baked were working in the home. Cut the attitude down a few notches there.

In addition to controlling the oven spring of a loaf, I have also heard that slashing the dough was also done as a way to identify one person's loaf of bread from another when bread used to be baked in communal ovens.