Bread Lame - Dough Cutting Tool A Breadtopia Exclusive
A Lame (pronounced LAHM, meaning "blade" in French) is typically a long thin stick made to hold a metal razor used to cut, or score, bread dough to help control the expansion of the loaf as it bakes.
We have not carried a bread lame until recently because we were unable to find one that we liked. They were either over priced or cheap and disposable. To work well, the blade needs to be extremely sharp, so a replaceable blade was a necessary feature of an acceptable lame. We also wanted to carry a lame that was reasonably priced.
We believe our bread lame is an excellent balance of form, function and price. It's designed to be easy to see and pick up. This may sounds funny, but one popular model on the market is so small and thin as to be nearly invisible when set down, is difficult to pick up barehanded and almost impossible to use while wearing protective oven gloves. Our lame's comfort grip handle allows for steady control and accurate cutting. It uses inexpensive replaceable double edge blades which makes it both economical and ecological.
Since you're only cutting with one corner of the blade at a time and the blade can easily be rotated, you get maximum life out of each blade.
The handle is made by Iowa woodworkers from cherry. The stainless steel strip is also made in the U.S. The 5 included blades are imported from Eastern Europe.
The video clip below is of Ciril Hitz demonstrating scoring baguette dough with bread lame at the 3rd annual Kneading Conference in Maine