It sounds "Lame" but it's awesome! Slash beautiful patterns in dough with this French style knife. Professional bakers use this tool (called a lame - pronounced lahm) to score loaves before baking to allow rapid expansion of the loaf. This results in light fluffy bread with crisp aromatic crust. Slash those loaves in style! Zatoba's Black Walnut Bread Lame is the Ideal Bread Lame Unique Design Created in 2007 The unique design by Wyllis Greenway is beautiful and functional. This lame is light and delicately curved fitting comfortably into the hand for precise scoring. The brass thumbnuts make blade replacement quick and easy. USA Heirloom Quality Black Walnut Wood Each lame is cut from Black Walnut wood. The natural tone and grain of this wood varies so each lame is entirely unique. You can tell it's a Zatoba original by the scroll design and brand stamp on the gold tone guard. The Perfect Gift A cute little pine box with a slide lid and a gorgeous black and gold metallic label make this fun bread tool ready to gift. Joyful Baking and Sharing Baking is art and one of the highest expressions of love and connection. Come share the fun with us at #Zatoba Instagram or please leave a review with your 1st or 100th scoring job. We can't wait to see your best initial attempts or your greatest masterpieces. Our Story As a kid I spent a lot of time in our family wood shop crafting projects. I made my first dough slasher as a gift for my mom when I was thirteen. Through much trial and error I zeroed in on the perfect design. When I was eighteen years old, I started a company selling my creations. My mission is to connect the highest quality baking products with the most serious bakers. Happy Baking! Wyllis Greenway Top Tips for the Most Beautiful Scoring Results Freeze Your Loaf Put your loaf into the freezer for up to 20 minutes to get a clean cut. This especially helps with high hydration loaves that are quite sticky. Handling a chilled loaf is also a little easier than a warm one so moving your loaf from a banneton to a peel or stone can be a little easier. Underproof For best scoring results it's best to slightly underproof rather than overproof. This allows the dough to expand beautifully with dramatic lines. Over proofing dough can cause it to collapse a little when scoring and will lead to shallow and narrow scoring lines. Center Scoring Score toward the center of your loaf to keep the loaf from spreading too much. Any cut lines toward the bottom of the loaf will interfere with the loaves ability to hold itself high. Keep in mind that each cut line will expand in the opposite direction. So if you score from top to bottom the line will expand left to right. If you want a loaf to keep it's shape, make sure your designs are symmetrical Cover Your Loaf Cover your loaf with an upside down deep roasting pan lid or metal bowl on top a baking stone or inside a dutch oven with the lid on. Retaining the steam for the first 15 minutes of the bake allows the loaf to expand as much as possible. You can even spray it with some water before covering it with a lid. Remove the lid after 15 minutes to finish the browning process. Specifications for Zatoba's Black Walnut Bread Lame Handcrafted in the USA Produced and shipped in the United States of America Full Coverage Brass Guard Brass guard covers the entire back of the lame to prevent the blade from protruding. 5 Double Edged Razors Included Good for ten blade changes. (1.25" or 3cm approx ) Little Pine Box for Storage Pine box with slide lid for safe storage (8"x2"x1" - 20x5x2.5cm approx) Knurled Brass Thumb Nuts Brass thumbnuts to comfortably tighten the blade in place. Slender and light Dimensions of 7.5" (19cm) long and 1" (2.5cm) wide. Not Dishwasher Safe Condition wood with butcher block oil and clean brass with brass polish.