But, there are different types of kitchen knives that are designed for various purposes. The knife's long serrated blade works well to slice through food that is hard on the outside and soft on the inside, such as slicing through the hard crusts of bread. It can even double as a carving knife. Then use your bread knife to easily remove the rind or cut it into wedges. If you’re set on sharpening your bread knife yourself, be sure to familiarize yourself with the specifications of your knife as they vary by brand – and be sure to practice, practice, practice! This keeps your melon from rolling all over the cutting board. Let’s cut right to the chase: There are only like four ways to use a bread knife. You can also use a bread knife to prepare some of the accompanying ingredients for your sweet treats. Unlike a chef’s knife or utility knife with their smooth, straight edges, a bread knife features toothy, saw-like scallops or serrations along its cutting edge. Though a serrated knife is ideal for slicing bread, the Nakiri Knife is also a great alternative for soft bread. Chef’s Knives. What a bread knife will do is enable you to slice bread without squishing it. Use a bread knife to easily cut the chocolate into small, manageable pieces suitable for melting or mixing into doughs and batters. Some can double as a carving knife. For slicing real bread, a serrated blade is the tool of choice. When splitting cakes, this is also the best knife to use. Additionally, it can also act as the perfect tool for shaping and levelling cakes for decorating, along with cutting delicate slices to serve. When using a manual bread slicer, the knife should be slid into the guide and, with very little downward pressure, it should be gently used to saw through the bread. A bread knife can be used to cut many different kinds of bread. What defines them is their serrated blade, which gives them a saw-toothed edge that can make quick work of some of the most rugged items, and also the most delicate ones. Bread knives are used for cutting bread and are one of many kitchen knives used by cooks. The serrated blades of bread knives are able to cut soft bread without crushing it. Interestingly, this particular knife shown is called a Scie à tourte (tourte sometimes refers to a large loaf of very crusty bread) so it’s specifically up for the challenge of sawing through large round loaves of French bread with a dense exterior. Paring knives are great alternatives to conventional peelers. Although this particular Fibrox Pro knife is marketed as a Bread Knife, it is in fact far more versatile than that which is why it gets our Best Choice spot in today’s Best Bread Knife review. The primary job of a bread knife is to slice bread. Look for a knife with large, scalloped serrations as they are more effective than small ones and create less crumbs while slicing through bread. 2. These act just like a saw, slicing through food as you move the knife back and forth, rather than using downward pressure. See It. Keep the arm of the hand holding the knife relaxed as you cut. If you’re set on sharpening your bread knife yourself, be sure to familiarize yourself with the specifications of your knife as they vary by brand – and be sure to practice, practice, practice! Purchase your foam here: http://www.fabricfarms.com/Upholstery-Foam.html Straight-e These tough foods can trap a blade, requiring you to use more force to either push it downward or pull it back out, which increases the chances of cutting yourself in the process. Serrated knives are also known as bread knives. The name of the knife does not matter, but a good 'bread knife' will have serrations which are optimally designed for slicing real bread. Other models, however, may have a rounded end, or an angled tip. One such knife was exhibited at the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893 in Chicago by the Friedrich Dick company (Esslingen, Germany). These changes in texture would cause straight-edged knives to snag and tear, but the bread knife slices through with no problems. A long, serrated bread knife should be used with a manual bread slicer. Peeling ingredients. When cutting bread into slices, the key is to keep the knife perfectly vertical so that each slice is the same thickness from top to bottom. They’re distinguished by the saw-like appearance of the blade’s edge. 8 inches is a common length used for a bread knife. Use your paring knife to make a small incision, then pry the line up with the tip of your blade. In the meantime, you can prolong the sharp edge of your bread knife by properly cleaning and caring for it, by following the rules of, If you don’t want to sacrifice your bread knife for practice, then definitely seek a professional. Its large serrations allow it to grip the crumb and the crust of bread to cut it, without having to press down on the bread to do so. The serrated edge moving back and forth across the bread should cut the bread rather than downward pressure. Knives are the most important tool in a chef's kit, and they can be used for just about any food prep task from chopping onions and butchering a cut of beef to opening oysters and slicing bread. This design makes the serrated knife highly efficient at certain kinds of cutting. If you don’t have a cake leveller in your kitchen, a bread knife can also be used to even out your sponge cakes after baking. It’s quite easy to learn how to use a bread knife, but it does take practice to make even slices: you simply hold the food in place on a cutting with your other hand, careful to keep your fingers out of the way, and draw the bread knife smoothly back and forth through the food. My suggestion is it's a cheese knife, the fork on the back is for spearing the cheese, Usually they are only small knives, bread knives tend to be longer to give you more sawing action.. A bread knife, or a serrated knife, has saw-like notches formed on the cutting edge of the blade. Chefs must work with the best available tools and the right blade will allow you superior precision and skill. If you only cook occasionally, you may only need a paring knife and a chef’s knife. It’s also the perfect tool for shaping and leveling cakes for decorating, along with cutting delicate slices to serve. It’s also perfect for removing the bark from a pineapple. By choking up on the blade, you have more control over it, which allows you to relax your arm as you cut. Opt for the sturdiest knife you can afford, since less flexible blades tend to make more even slices. Tougher foods are no match for a bread knife either. Because of its design, these knives tend to remain sharp far longer than straight-edged blades, but the serrations also make them harder to sharpen at home. A go… There were also sections of grooves with the opposite direction of inclination, separated by a section of smooth blade, and the knife thus cut cleanly in both directions in both hard and soft bread. You want a bread knife that looks more like a saw than a steak knife. If you don’t want to sacrifice your bread knife for practice, then definitely seek a professional. Bread knives occupy a niche role in your kitchen blade arsenal. This serration allows you to easily cut through crust without smooshing the loaf, thus preserving the airy quality and volume of a perfect slice. And if you’d rather spend more time cooking and less time sharpening your knives (who doesn’t? The serrated blades of bread knives are able to cut soft bread without crushing it. The tips of these knives may be rounded or pointed, but it actually makes no difference since the tip of the bread knife isn’t used for cutting. Thanks! That one trait makes the bread knife useful for both squishy, delicate foods and very firm, tough foods. Different knives serve different purposes. This takes some practice in order to achieve every time, but it’s a skill worth mastering. But, since bread knives feature serrated edges, it can be tricky to sharpen them yourself. Of course, with practice also comes a higher chance of destroying your favorite bread knife, so it might be best to leave it up to the professionals – not to mention, many knife brands might offer knife sharpening services and even “lifetime guarantees”, but such services can be nullified if you destroy your knife by trying to sharpen it yourself. This article is about the item of cutlery. Don’t press down – let the serrations do the work for you. Bread is not the only use for this knife – it is great for cutting through both soft cakes (sponge) and dense cakes (pound cakes) even when freshly baked. The thin blade eases its way through your tender and delicate pastry. Sharp Guide to Buying Shiny New Kitchen Knives, How the Rockwell Hardness Scale is Used in Kitchen Cutlery, The Best Knife for Cutting Veggies – Hint: It’s Not Just One, Elevate Your Kitchen With Damascus Steel Patterns. Of course, with practice also comes a higher chance of destroying your favorite bread knife, so it might be best to leave it up to the professionals – not to mention, many knife brands might offer knife sharpening services and even “lifetime guarantees”, but such services can be nullified if you destroy your knife by trying to sharpen it yourself. A bread knife is a long knife with a serrated (or "scalloped") cutting edge. To properly cut rounded squash or melon, first cut off the stem or blossom end to create a flat surface. Of course you can use a bread knife to slice all kinds of breads from baguettes and brioche to bagels and biscuits. Home › Top Uses for a Bread Knife – It’s Not Just for Bread. Many kitchen knife sets will include this knife, although they are easily purchased separately. Dick exhibited during the biggest international fair in Chicago", Cutlery and Allied Trades Research Association, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bread_knife&oldid=983816990, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 16 October 2020, at 12:09. The blade of a bread knife is 8 to 10 inches long. This gives a bread knife some distinct advantages when it comes to cutting certain types of food – especially bread since it’s designed to slice right through crusty loaves without crushing the soft center. Our upholstery manager, Bernie, shows you how to cut foam with a bread knife! Well truth be told, the bread knife isn’t just for bread, and we’re here to tell you why it could become one of your go-to knives in the kitchen. 2. Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0 When it comes to sharpening your kitchen knives, there are a few different tools you can use. The Superior series bread knife consists of a thin, 2-millimeter blade (which is a hair over 1/16 of an inch) that’s tapered from spine to edge to reduce wedging. Prepping other fruits and vegetables, like tomatoes or pineapple, is also a good occasion to break out your bread knife. You won't use a bread knife nearly as often as a chef's knife, the true workhorse of the kitchen, but for a limited set of tasks, they are necessary. It’s also the perfect tool for shaping and leveling cakes for decorating, along with cutting delicate slices to serve. It even handles specialty loaves loaded with extras like raisins or olives. Not only does it easily slice through the delicate sponge of a cake, its blade is also longer than most other kitchen knives, meaning you can slice through the entire layer in just one pass. Other blades such as a straight-edged knife will tend to squash the bread down. 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